Andean Pebble Weave is Alive and Well in the Caribbean

I wrote this originally on Nov. 5th, 2014 – Finally getting around to finishing the saga of this trip.  And Finally some thing that tied in with Textiles and weaving.
We arrived at the port of Philipsburg, St. Maarten today and since we hadn’t booked any tours we just went into town to look around. Buying jewelry is the main focus of most cruisers in ports around the Caribbean. I really don’t need any more jewelry – especially high-end, expensive (even in a duty-free shop) diamond encrusted pieces that I’d be afraid to wear without an armed guard. Besides diamonds don’t really go with jeans or shorts.

So we spent about an hour in a shop offering free wi-fi trying to log on and check email and post the blog entries that I’d been writing off-line. We managed to get online, struggled to download at least some of the huge list of emails waiting to be read, but that was about all. I never even tried to upload my postings. Oh well.

After that we decided to look around to see what might be available on the back streets and away from the many diamond and other jewelry shops. We found a street with a line of little kiosks each selling pretty much the same stuff – and probably all made in China. After looking around we spotted a bench in the shade behind one of the kiosks so we sat there to rest and I had a snow cone.

Definitely Pebble woven fish. Even tho I didn’t get close enough to see the “pebbles” very well – believe me they’re there.

While sitting there I spotted a little purse made from some woven material.

Lovely bright colors with definite Andean Pebble weave design

When I got closer I realized that they were all great examples of Andean Pebble Weave. some of the designs were the same ones that we learned from Laverne Waddington recently – Gracias Laverne. As I chatted with the sales lady about which ones I wanted, I asked her where they had been made. Of course the answer was that they were made right there on the island.

Not made with high quality yarn but beautiful designs

So I tried another track – did she know where the fabric had been made? That brought the blankest look I’d ever seen. Since St. Martin/St. Maarten is an island which has 2 different countries and 2 national languages – French and Dutch – and many residents also speak a version of the Caribbean patois which is totally unintelligible to most outsiders (or at least to me), I couldn’t tell if this was a language problem or if she understood all the words but the extent of her info on these little purses was limited to how much they cost. So I just gave up and decided to buy them anyhow. I know that they’re pebble weave and I guess I’ll survive not knowing where they were made. Probably China.

On the other side of each little purse is an ironed on decal showing St. Marten and some cutesy cartoon.  Of course on our next stop in St. Thomas they had the same purses with St. Thomas decals.  I tried to pick off the decal but it wouldn’t come.  Oh well.

This was the first one to catch my eye. Laverne had taught us to do the “S” type design on the lower stripe.

From Florence to the Cruise Ship and Beyond

Heading to Civitavecchia – the port of Rome

On our last trip to Italy we drove from Impruneta to Civitavecchia using Map Quest directions. It took us on a strangely circuitous route, partly on highway toll roads and partly through cow pastures and farmland. We passed through a very tiny medieval hill town and I kept waiting for the road to get narrower and narrower like on Chevy Chase’s vacation movie where the car gets stuck between 2 buildings. But we made it out and eventually got to Civitavecchia. We laughed about what a crazy route that Map Quest sent us on. So this year I got the directions from booking.com, where I booked the hotel in Civitavecchia, thinking they surely should know the best way. Guess what? We found ourselves in the same little Chevy Chase village almost stuck between the buildings. I guess that’s the right (and probably only) way after all!

We’re on our way – Aboard the Norwegian Epic. – Oct. 22, 2014
We boarded, unpacked and settled in to our home for the next 18 days. Lovely ship, great room but way too many people. It’s the largest ship we’ve ever cruised on, and I tried to stay open-minded but after several days I still think there are too many people. The common areas are always over crowded. The big show room is smaller than any other we’ve seen before. And you have to make a reservation to make sure you get a seat. But we’ve made our reservations and the entertainment has been great.

Our first few days I’ve mentioned earlier. We missed the stop at Livorno and then went on to stop at Cannes, France, Palma de Mallorca  and Barcelona, Spain and Funchal, Portugal on the island of Madeira.  On the Cannes stop we took a tour to Monaco which was sort of formal and expensive. In Palma we toured the city and I decided that I’d like to go back for a longer visit.  In Barcelona we visited the wonderful church, Sagrada Familia,  designed by Antonio Gaudí.

I had seen this church the first in 1972 and it was very different.  Bear in mind that at that time Franco was still in power, political suppression was rampant  and I suspect someone as creative and avant guard as Gaudí probably wasn’t readily accepted.  As I remember it, at that time the church was a shell – just parts of the outside were finished and it was not open to the public.  The lake in the photo at the right was a parking lot.  I remember that vividly because my brand new 1972 VW got its first scratch in that lot.

You can see how much work has been completed in the interim. The original parts are darker than the new parts. They are following Gaudí’s plans and are true to his vision in style and creativity.  It’s an amazing building both inside and out.

This post has gotten so long with all the photos that I think I’ll stop here and write more another time.

Beautiful stained glass window.

The inside has much cleaner lines but is equally as dramatic.

Notice the colorful fruit a the top of the spires.

The tableau over one of the main doors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This building was used by Gaudi as a school for the children of the workers.

The roof of the building was true to Gaudí’s creative spirit.

The wavy roof from the inside.

Can you ever get too much art?

Sunday Evening, Oct. 26^th – Leaving Barcelona, Spain

Taking up where I left off – While in Venice we visited lots and lots of very old churches and then the Galleria de l’Academia.  Every little unassuming old church has a collection of fantastic old paintings by some master or another.  The Academia has a huge collection of Renaissance paintings and the building is fascinating too.  It was created by joining several buildings together.  Since the buildings were probably built at different times and if you add to that the fact that Venice is slowly sinking, you end up with a building with floors that not only are at  several different heights but also ones that undulate interestingly from one side of the room to the other.

Venice by its very nature and location is a seafaring culture and in the early years had strong ties to the world of Islam. This small corner of a bigger painting shows a ceremonial event in what looks like St. Mark’s piazza. The Venetians have the black caps while Moors – probably from Constantinople – are seen in turbans.  They were trading partners and this relationship influenced Venetian life, culture and architecture.  As you boat down the canals you see many buildings with typical Moorish arched windows.

Below is an example of a building with a distinctly Moorish shape to the windows.

Beautiful building along the Grand Canal showing the Moorish influence in it’s windows.

The bottom floor is plainer – that’s the area used for storage and not where the family lives.  It’s also the area most affected by the water that either floods in during high tides or gradually seeps in through osmosis.

It was fun to take rides on the vaporetto and imagine what it might feel like to actually live in Venice.  After a day of riding the vaporetti we often could still feel the rocking of the boat for many hours.

 

 

 

Friday – Oct. 31, 2014 – Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean

Speaking of rocking boats, we are now 2 days at sea since leaving Funchal, Madeira, Portugal.  Yesterday the ocean was almost as smooth as glass, today not so much.  It’s not stormy but very windy and the boat is rocking much more.  I was initially worried that 6 days at sea with no port stops would be difficult.  But it’s been relaxing and we still have lots of things to do – besides sleeping late and then napping later – there are lectures and classes and the gym and of course there’s always the casino.  But I have decided that I don’t really like this big a ship.  They’ve added cabins for more people but the common activity spaces always seem crowded.

Our hosts – Marco, Perla, and their kids Bernardo and Beatrice

Now back to the sequence of the journey. After we left Venice we picked up a rental car at the airport and headed for Florence.  We got a little turned around leaving the airport and headed in the opposite direction towards Trieste –  but eventually we figured it out and we had a lovely ride through some beautiful rolling green hillsides.  We found our way back to the Villa Saladini in Impruneta and it felt as if we were coming home. Perla and Marco who run the rental of 4 apartments in the beautiful Villa, have maintained a wonderful homey atmosphere.

And since we’d stayed there on our last trip it was wonderful to be back.  How often do you get to check into your lodging by hugging the owners!  So nice.

Such elegance and great food too.  The next morning we had a great cooking class with a teacher sent from a local cooking  school and taught in the Villa’s kitchen.  Many rooms of the Villa have been remodeled over the years so it’s hard to date their decor.  Marco and Perla and their 2 children live in one of the oldest parts from about the year 1100, our rooms are in a newer part –  built in the 1700’s and then there are parts of the villa built in between.

The original stove exhaust hood – really a chimney over the wood burning stove.

The original kitchen is now a storage room next to the one we used for our class.  These photos  show the original wood  burning stove which now serves as sort of counter space.  Below you can see the “modern” stove that we used for our class.

The wood burning stove – now used as counter space

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Norm cooking at the modern stove – with my reflection in the window.

We learned how to make lasagna using béchamel sauce instead of the more familiar ricotta cheese, (we even made the noodles), bruschetta, and tiramisu for desert.  She picked some of the herbs right outside in the garden – below you can see the thyme plant in the garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we sat down and ate our marvelous meal.  And since our home was just around the corner of the villa we also enjoyed some local wine with our lasagna.

We had scheduled 3 different tours in Florence for the next 3 days.  When we had stayed there before it had been easy to get into Florence from the Villa. In the center of Impruneta – about a 2 min. drive – there’s a free parking lot and the local bus stops right there.  So we’d hop on the bus go into Florence and then either walk or take a cab to where we needed to go.  The added wrinkle this year was that they were celebrating a weeklong “feira” or festival of San Lucas in Impruneta, so now the parking lot was full of kids carnival rides and most of the streets in the center of town were blocked to cars.  The town had celebrated this Festival for over 1000 years so it was really a big thing – the kids even had a day off from school. They had a “Palio” – a type of horse race on an improvised dirt track through town.  This required hauling in tons of sand, covering the roads with the sand and covering any potential obstacles along the side of the road with either bales of hay or mattresses. And there were fireworks one night. As I say – it’s really a big event for Impruneta.

Because of this, we had to take a long, round-about and very confusing route to get out of Impruneta and  then to the road into Florence.  Then we had to decide where to park and how to get to our tour meeting spot.  Perla told us of a free parking lot closer to Florence and there was taxi stand and busses right there. Sometimes there were taxis but usually we had to call to get one and hold our breath that  it would arrive on time. Below is a shot of the view of Florence from the parking lot.

The Duomo seen from a hill on the other side of the Arno river.

Florence is an amazing city with history and art on every corner and in between.  On our last trip we had visited the Academia to see the statue of David, the Duomo – the cathedral with the dome built by Brunelleschi, and the Ufizzi Museum with the Medici art collection.

The Vasari Corridor seen from the Ufizzi window.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This year, one of our tours took us for a brief visit to the amazing Ufizzi Museum and then on to the Vasari  Corridor which was built to connect the Ufizzi- which served as the Medici office building to their home, the Pitti Palace across the river. This allowed them to go from one to the other without having to mix with the common folk on the streets below.  The Vasari Corridor is lined with more beautiful paintings and one  whole section is dedicated to self portraits of many famous artists from the time of the Medici rule to more contemporary artists.  It’s an area that is not generally open to the public but the tour company has special permission to take occasional tours through. There was a guard that  accompanied us the entire way – just to make sure we behaved.   The photo above shows the Vasari Corridor as it leaves the Ufizzi on the right, goes down and then over the Ponte Vecchio as it crosses the river. The other photos give you an idea of how the corridor looks from the inside.  It is very plain after the overly ornate Ufizzi museum. It was a great tour and I had to search to find it but I’m glad that I did.

One view of the corridor – and our personal guard.

Finally wi-fi again. Yippee!!!

We’ve been cruising for the last 14 days and have not had access to the internet. At first I missed it but then it was sort of like not having any homework to do. I did do some writing off-line so I could post when we connected again. At the moment I’m sitting on our balcony in the port of St. Thomas US Virgin Islands and overlooking Señor Frog’s restaurant. There’s wild music and I can see people with balloon hats dancing on Sr. Frog’s porch. I’m getting wi-fi from somewhere – free so I’m enjoying it.
They got us up early to march though an encounter with US Immigration since this is our first contact with US soil. Seemed sort of silly to pass by the officer, flashing our passports and room cards and then we were on our way. Oh well.

Then we went for breakfast and I went into town to do some shopping. But frankly I’m pretty shopped out. Now if I had a hankering for expensive diamond jewelry I’d be in hog heaven but I don’t, so after 300 shops all with huge displays of the same type of jewelry, my eyes glazed over and I returned to the ship.

So here’s the first of my saved postings.

Hi from somewhere in the Mediterranean between Livorno and Cannes. The itinerary called for a stop in Livorno this morning and we had booked a tour to Cinque Terre but the winds were apparently too strong. We were behind schedule as it was because of the winds and then the Captain decided that it was too dangerous to dock. We were partly disappointed and partly relieved because we were both tired. So I decided to take this opportunity catch up on my blog. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to post it, because wi-fi access on board is difficult if not impossible (besides being very expensive) but at least I’ll have written it before I forget it all.

I think that the last time I wrote we were still in Venice. We had toured St. Mark’s at night and then we did a walking food and wine tour. This is one of my favorite shots of the Salute Church, which was built in thanksgiving for the city having survived a plague. I took it after the night tour of St. Mark’s.

The Salute Church at night

The next day we took the vaporetto out to the island of Murano where the beautiful Venetian glass is made. The glass workers moved there to keep from burning down the rest of Venice – or rather they were forced to move there. When we were here last time we took a tour to the outer islands, but then discovered that it’s very easy to take the vaporetti (one is vaporetto – more than one are vaporetti) The vaporetti are boats that run a fixed route like a bus.

Going on our own allows us to explore wherever we want. I was surprised to find that there are some beautiful “villa sized” homes there. I guess I expected everyone to be hardworking glass blowers or people selling the glass work to tourists. But either some people really made lots of money selling glass pieces to tourists or maybe some wealthy people just wanted to live in a quieter place than Venice. Here’s one of those beautiful houses.

Lovely home on Murano Island hidden away from the ubiquitous glass shops.

As we wandered around I spotted a big glass piece on a piazza that reminded me of one of the Chihuly pieces that were in the Desert Botanical Gardens recently. I asked a clerk in one of the shops who the artist was and got a sort of blank stare. I guess when you’re surrounded by beautiful works of art in glass you become immune to it. It was lovely and sunny in Murano but by the time we got back to Venice it foggy and gray. Here’s a shot of a great, large, private sail-boat that was docked in the fog near San. Basilio – our vaporetto stop.

A sailing ship looks right at place in the Venice canal.

I’m starting to get tired – time for a nap – relaxing is so exhausting. More tomorrow.

Ciccetti e vino – Small bites and wine

They’re sort of like Spanish Tapas – except that the Venetians start making the rounds fairly early in the day – like as soon as the Rialto market opens in the morning.  Today we took a walking food tour around the Rialto area. The Rialto is the market area that has been providing Venetians with fresh fish and produce since 1097.  Apparently a typical Venetian pass time is to go to one (or more) of the small Bacari (or wine bars) and stand or sit with their friends and catch up on all the news of the neighborhood. Many of these Bocari places are very, very old. The first stop, Cantina do Mori, has been operating since 1462! Young compared to the Market itself. And we went to one where Casanova used to meet with his buddies to plan their adventures.

This Cantina has been in business since 1462! America was still 30 years away from being discovered.

And the ceiling was covered with old copper water buckets that Venetians used to use to get water from the rain water cisterns.  We visited 5 Bocaro shops – that’s 5 glasses of wine and 5 ciccetti – or little bites of food.  And at the last stop we also had a special dessert wine with cookies made especially for the fishermen on the island of  Burano.  (more about Murano and Burano in another post).

I just realized that I have more photos than text for this post. Oh well – it was a great day.  We did lots of walking to balance out the drinking and eating.

Yes I was having a great time.

Since it is no longer necessary to get drinking water from cisterns – which still can be found (although now covered) all over the city – many wine bars use them for decor.

A sample of some of the ciccetti – small bites.

Norm enjoying himself.

Pondering interesting juxtapositions.

It’s Thursday now I’m again sitting in our rented flat and I’m struck with how strange it is to be writing on my computer, connected to the internet (and thus the world) via wi-fi while in a 300 year old home in an even older city. Here’s a photo of our ceiling that demonstrates this comparison.

The chandelier in our living room hanging from 300 year old hand hewn beams.

We’re watching a Maggie Smith movie called “My House in Umbria”.   We’ pretty tired tonight since we’ve spent the last 3 days walking all over Venice and beyond.  We’ve seen several old churches, each with an amazing collection of paintings.  Yesterday we went on an after hours tour of St. Marks during which they allowed us to view the church with special lighting.  We saw some amazing mosaics and the photos I was able to take far exceeded what we could see from the ground.

You can see the Byzantine influence in many of the mosaics.

Another mosaic showing definite Byzantine influence.

We were able to see all the domes – all well-lit as opposed to dark and virtually invisible during the day when the masses come to visit.  I would love to find a book that studies the meanings of all the beautiful mosaics in St. Mark’s.  And after 45 minutes looking up at the mosaics my neck was aching. I flashed on what it might have been like for the craftsmen creating them.  According to the tour guide they would put up enough mortar for one day’s work of tile setting – about 1 square meter per day. Then they’d work all day meticulously taking one tile at a time from the boxes of tiles around them, referring to the cartoon or working drawing of that section , and set each one into the mortar.

I’m still working on how to do the layout on WordPress, so bear with me. The format will be somewhat rough but I want to get this online today.  We’re both tired so we’re having a rest morning.  I’ll add some more tomorrow.

I’ve lost track of who these people are – maybe apostles and evangelists?

This dome shows a circle of figures.

Imagine how much gold was needed for this dome

This dome is amazingly ornate and filled with detail.

Venice revisited

It’s Tuesday, Oct. 7th at 10 PM and we’re sitting in our rented flat in Venice drinking wine, eating corn nuts that we brought with us and watching movies. We just finished “Tea with Mussolini” which was filmed partly in Florence – which is where we go after our week here. This is the way to live. We arrived yesterday morning at about 9 AM Venice time but since our bodies were still on PHX time we were only half here. We got our luggage, caught the Alilaguna boat and made it from the airport into Venice with a minimum of hassle while dragging all our luggage. (there’s something odd about dragging luggage from a modern airport onto a boat and arriving in one of the most beautiful, historic, old cities in the world. Kind of time travel.) We stopped for lunch and checked in with the “meet and greet” team for our rented flat. We had set the meeting time for 2 pm but since it was noon and we had nothing else to do we thought we’d call anyhow. Somehow they managed to get some one to let us in by 12:30. We went grocery shopping to get out of the way of the cleaning lady, but were settled, unpacked and enjoying a movie by about 3. We were also asleep in front of that movie by about 4pm. We roused and made it to bed by about 7 pm. This morning we took our time getting organized and went out to explore churches in this neighborhood. We’re in the Dorsoduro section of Venice which is the same section in which we stayed on our last visit. (thus the title – “Venice Revisited”. But this lodging is much better. We have a lovely flat with a living room, dining room, kitchenette and bedroom plus we have a lovely outdoor patio area complete with plants that suffered under last week’s freak hail storm. (I promised our landlady that I’d trim the dead plants – gardening in Venice!) I’m starting to fade -the wine wins again. More tomorrow and maybe some photos.

Home again, home again jiggity jig!

Well it was really more of a 26 hour trudge but we made it back to Arizona.  We had set a 3:30 AM wake up call and managed to pull ourselves together, make the 5 AM airport shuttle and got to Marco Polo Airport in time to check in all our luggage and make the 7:30 AM flight to Madrid.  We had about an hour in Madrid and then boarded the flight to Dallas.  Then we sat and sat and sat while they tried to decide if we could take off in the wind. Apparently our plane was too heavy – and no it wasn’t just our extra luggage.  They then had to off load a bunch of cargo, wait a while longer for the wind to shift and then we could finally take off.  Only and hour and a half late.  Many of us would have tight connections but more about that later.

It was a VERY long 10 and a half hour flight.  It must have been one of American’s older planes. Every seat – in coach at least – was taken and there were only a 3-4 tiny TVs along the middle section of the plane and 2 at the front of the coach area so watching movies was challenging for those of us in the back of the plane.  We were at least 5 – 6 rows back and several seats across from the closest TV.  I had asked to be able to upgrade to first class with our miles/points when I made the reservations. We had done that with our last 2 trips to Europe and it made the long flights so much easier.  But this time we were just put on the wait list and didn’t get the upgrades in either direction.  Really makes me wish we were rich enough to just buy first or business class tickets.  Oh well.  I’ll go buy another lottery ticket and hope.

When we finally got to Dallas all the passengers who had tight connections were given some help to get through customs and all the baggage and security process quickly enough to get to their connecting flights.  We made it to our plane and 3 minutes later they closed the doors and we were off.  Whew!

Back in Phoenix and our good friend Glenn picked us up at the airport and brought us and all our luggage home.  It felt sort of strange to be home after 26 days away – kind of familiar yet out-of-place.  We collapsed – thrilled to be in our own bed – and slept for about 7 hours and now it’s Sunday afternoon.  We’ve unpacked and washed all our clothes, heaped the treasures and mementos on a table to sort through and organize, Norm paid all the bills that were waiting for us and we’ve sort of stumbled through the day so far.  I suspect that we’ll go to bed early tonight.

I just did a quick review of all our photos to see if there were any that I’d still like to share and came up with a few so I’ll just include them here as a way of ending this chapter of my blog.

This shows the solution that the Valleta, Malta city maintenance crew came up with for a lamp-post that needed help standing up. It works!

This is from the Parthenon on the Acropolis yet it looks like something from the Art Deco period.

 

 

This sign was before a shop near the exit from the ruins of Ephesus.

This was the group bathroom at the ruins of Ephesus. Great way for casual conferences.

 

Some of the interesting things in a shop in Venice – yes donkey and horse sausage.

A shot of the Colossus of Rhodes on the back of a bus.

Our tour guide commented that in Venice people live very close to each other and no one has a dryer so everyone knows ALL your secrets – down to what size undies you wear and how often you change your sheets.

If you have an emergency in Venice and have to go to the hospital – this is how you get there.

This is one of the narrow streets on our way to the vaporetto. Really a street.

Another narrow street on our route. They are actually streets with official names and they appear on maps.

Many older buildings (well most buildings in Venice are older) are held together with what looks like staples or huge T-pins. Guess it works.

This is the light fixture in our room in Venice. We called it early Venetian whore house!

This is one of the streets near the grocery store in Impruneta near Florence. I asked but our landlady didn’t seem to know why it they chose to name it that.

An interesting design to see on an ancient pot in the Archeology Museum in Santorini.

I thought it was interesting that this building on Mykonos had doors, railings and propane tanks that all matched.

This is one of the “guard cats” on duty at Ephesus. There seemed to be very healthy cats all over the place on the Greek islands and at Ephesus

This is one of the rug weavers we saw after the visit to the ruins on Ephesus. She showed us how she double tied her knots but was too fast for me to get a good shot.

//

Winding down

We’re in the Hilton Garden Inn near the Venice Marco Polo airport.  Its a lovely hotel with a wonderfully comfortable bed.  Getting here this morning was a bit challenging.  There had been a huge storm yesterday – which I was out in for about 3 hours doing a great food and tasting tour.  More about that later but here’s a photo a friend sent me from St. Mark’s Square yesterday afternoon.  This morning it was still raining and the water was quite rough so when we got on the vaporetto with our suitcases and back packs it was very tricky.  Luckily we’d gotten used to using these “bus boats” all week so we managed pretty well.

Tourists with only a short time in Venice just keep on visiting the important sites.

Yesterday’s tour was fantastic in spite of the rain.  Norm wasn’t feeling well so I went alone and the tour guide was Kristina – who had been our guide for the boat tour a few days ago.  And I was the only client so it was a totally private tour.  We started the tour in a tiny snack shop with a taste of proseco and a small sandwich. This was at 10:30 AM but that’s what they do so who am I to question it.  Then we went to the main Rialto Market which has been functioning since the 10th century.  It was amazing to see all the fresh produce brought in by boat of course and the fresh fish from the local lagoons and canals.  And it didn’t smell the least bit fishy.  

This was the first stop for Proseco and little sandwiches. Apparently locals drink wine off and on all day since no one has to drive home – no cars in Venice.

Fresh vegetables including beautiful squash blossoms just waiting to be dipped in batter and fried.

In between each section of the market we stopped at a different little shop.  The second offered a lovely mild white wine with small pieces of toast – one with a cheese and fried cod mixture and the other a piece of battered and fried shrimp with onions and raisins.  Both very tasty.

 

Our next section of the market was the fish market which had a plaque stating the legal sizes of different types of fish that were allowed by the government – in place for about 900 years.  

 

Although it’s difficult to see because of the rain, this plaque lists the government minimum sizes for fish.

After the first part of the fish market we stopped in another shop that had been there for hundreds of years for some fried octopus and lovely meatballs and polenta served with burgundy wine.  

 

 

Then the rest of the fish and our final stop for a cafe expresso, a special cookie made in the outer island Burano (also famous for handmade lace) and a shot of grappa!

Bags of clams including some fancy shelled things – maybe a variety of snail or fish – I’m not sure.

Then we walked around the area looking at some apparently very famous but out of the way shops and restaurants that most tourists would never find.  This one with the pots hanging on the ceiling was once frequented by none other than Casanova himself as a good place to find lovely women – married or not – it didn’t really matter to him.  

Then I parted ways with my wonderful tour guide and half swam back to our hotel to begin packing for the trip home.  Sad to finish such a great trip but ready to be in our own bed.  

 

It’s easy to drink too much wine in Venice

We had a lovely day today touring Murano, Burano and Torcello.  But there wasn’t enough time in Murano for us so we plan to return tomorrow.

Maybe I should go back a little.  Yesterday we had our Walking tours of Venice. In the AM we visited the Basilica of San Marco with a great tour guide named Mosé.  He told us all about the history of San Marco and it seems that many of it’s most interesting parts have been stolen from Egypt, Constantinople and other Eastern countries.  The horses over the main entrance to the Basilica and the many of the columns of various types of marble are all stolen from someplace else. The horses were also later stolen from Venice by Napoleon and taken to France but returned only to be stolen again by someone else and then returned later. Many things in Venice are stolen from someplace else.  And we learned that much of the architecture is based on Eastern/Muslim styles of architecture.

These are the original horses which were over the main entrance of St. Marks. Now they are inside to protect them from the elements.  They are so amazingly life-like.

Here you see the statues on the wall separating the main altar in St. Marks from the rest of the church. This arrangement is typical of Eastern Orthodox churches.

After seeing San Marcos we went next door to the Doges palace.  One interesting thing that we learned was that until 1807 St. Marks was the private chapel of the Doge.  Imagine being so important that a church as big as St. Marks was just for you!!

This is the Doge’s Palace and the small enclosed bridge attached to the building is the Bridge of Sighs because it leads to the prison and was the last time the prisoners would see the outside world.

The Doge’s palace was beautiful and a great way to learn about the political structure of Venice. It was quite egalitarian and well-balanced.  There were several levels of government and many ways for the richer citizens to be involved in the government with balances and ways to keep people from being too much in control.

This is one of the domes of St. Marks. The style of the mosaics is very Byzantine.

Then in the afternoon we went on a boat tour of the various parts of Venice.  The many islands of Venice together are shaped like a fish.  There are different neighborhoods or sestieres.  We are staying in the Dorsoduro sestiere. And there is the San Marco, the Canaregio, and several more that I’ll add tomorrow when I’m sober.

We went out for dinner tonight and finally found a great restaurant with decent prices. So we celebrated with a lovely white wine – too much lovely white wine.

I think I’ll sign off now so Norm can use the computer and I’ll finish this tomorrow.

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