We started our first full day in Venice at St. Mark’s Basilica. It was there that we (or I) started our (or my) addiction to Rick Steves’ free audio tours. I downloaded them onto my phone, and J and I would each have one air pod in as we took the tours at our own pace, stopping as we liked. Highly recommend.

St Mark’s is a wild amalgam of Byzantine and Roman architecture, you name it. We especially enjoyed Rick’s (yes, on a first name basis now) narration of the mosaic that depicted St Mark’s bones being lost in the shuffle of building the church and ultimately discovered in an empty column. We saw the clock tower strike and then visited the Museo Correr, sporting glittery rooms of the French and Austrian regimes. 

We wandered through numerous alleyways and between canals and found ourselves at the Church of San Zaccaria (John’s father)…paintings occupying every flat space. 

After lunch we visited Doge’s Palace, whose dark, somber, huge rooms stood in stark contrast to the sparkle of the French and Austrians. When Venice was its own kingdom the doges were its rulers, with the role ultimately to become only ceremonial and then expire altogether after Napoleon’s conquest of the city. I now know a lot about the Battle of Lepanto (a 1571 naval defeat of a fleet of the Ottoman Empire), and the sheer volume of Veronese and Tintoretto paintings on walls and ceilings was almost overwhelming. We concluded with a tour of the prison cells and the Bridge of Sighs, where prisoners had their last glimpse of freedom before being confined in their cells.

Dinner that night included Venetian fish specialties – sardines in onions, polenta with two sorts of fish dip, scallops and clams, shrimp, langostinos, and squid.

Our last day in Venice we took a tour to the outlying islands of Murano, Burano, and Torcello. It wasn’t so much a tour as it was an easy way to get to these spots, which are about a 40 minute boat ride away.

We started in Murano. It’s very industrial, and red brick glass factories (query how many really still operate) line the harbor.  The sand bars leading the way to the island give a sense of what Venice must have looked like originally. We were immediately ushered into a glass blowing demonstration conducted by two world weary looking guys, one with fully tattooed arms, both smoking cigarettes and looking at their phones, and paying no attention to the tourist throngs. One blew a simple vase, the other, a bit more attentive, blew a horse. A reminder that glass blowing is as much a trade as an art.

To exit the demonstration you had to walk through the factory store, which offered steep discounts, but who really knew what you were buying. We purchased a few small items simply so we could say they were from Murano, and wandered a bit by the canals but it was extremely crowded.

Next was a short hop to Burano, famous for lace making and colorful pastel painted houses. It really is charming, despite all the tourists. We enjoyed a real lace making shop where some pieces are made by multiple ladies, each of whom specializes in one stitch. 

About midafternoon, the ferry left for Torcello, which is the least visited of all the islands. A 15 minute walk through a flat agricultural area led us to a very old Byzantine basilica and church. A canal cut through the island, by some very expensive looking inns and it looked as though it was a place for short weekend trips. 

The next day was for travel. We had a final breakfast at our nice B and B, together with our fellow guests – a German father – son combo (son ate way more breakfast than anyone else) and a middle aged Italian couple (either she had multiple identical black and white polka dot shirts or she wore the same thing every day) and a single Italian man. 

This time we found the scenic vaporetto and journeyed along the faded glory of the Grand Canal….water lapping up on the ground floors of the palazzos. I’m sure this was the inspiration for the crumbling building scene in Inception. 

Good bye Venice. See you in my dreams.