Venice

I had some really good gnocchi for lunch today. I don't even like gnocchi. At least, I didn't. I think I'm going to have to learn to make it when I get home.

I love Venice. The only downside is it's so bloody cold here. The morning was almost unbearable. Oh, and there are way too many tourists, or maybe you just notice it more because the space they can all cram into is so much smaller than the other cities. I don't think I could handle living in a city that had tourists.

Grand Canal

As I think I mentioned, I'm staying next to Piazza San Marco, and this morning there was some sort of army parade on. I think it was to farewell the troops heading off to Afghanistan. They sure do make a day of it, and they were there for several hours - parading, army band, singing of various songs including the National Anthem...

Soldier's Parade

This was on the way to my first stop of the day. I started the morning at the Doge's palace, and did the Secret Passageways tour as well. The palace is wonderful - just about every ceiling and wall is filled with paintings, much of it Veronese and Tintoretto, two of my favourites. It's the paintings, and the things I saw on the tour, that gives it something special, different from the numerous other palaces I've seen the past month.

Palace Courtyard

Actually, much of Venice seems to have been decorated by Veronese and Tintoretto.

Golden Staircase

The tour was really interesting - it took you away from the main part of the palace, to areas you can only access with the tour. You see the Grand Chancellor's office, the rooms where the Inquisitors and other tribunals sat, walk through the secret and service stairs and passageways, and best of all, see the prison area where the Very Important Prisoners were kept - which main centered around Casanova. Our guide was obviously very passionate about it all, and was a wonderful storyteller. She told us about Casanova's stay in the prison, and his escape - all based on his own writings, so one can assume they are embellished by Casanova himself a little, but it's a wonderful story, and even better for hearing it where the events actually took place. I must get his book when I get home!

Mouth of Truth - post your letter telling on your neighbours. Truth you get rewarded, if it's a lie, you suffer the punishment for the crime you wrongly claimed they committed. 

We saw the torture chamber - which consisted simply of a rope, which was tied around your wrists behind your back, and you were hoisted up... which would be painful beyond belief. The clever part about it, was that whenever someone was tortured in this manner, the cells around were filled with people who had committed like crimes, who could hear the screams and sobbing confessions of the person being tortured. This led to those waiting to confess, so in 15 minutes torture of one person, the Inquisitors could end up with 30 confessions. Not bad for a short night's work!

The whole thing is fascinating, and I could write pages on all of the interesting tidbits we learnt on that tour, all of the political workings of the time, but you'll just have to come and do the tour for yourselves one day. Venetians were very clever, efficient, and their government worked perfectly for 1,000 years, because of the way they ran everything. Until Napoleon came along, anyway.

Again, photos aren't allowed in most places, and I found out the reason for that - at least as it was for the Doge's palace - they used to allow photography but with no flashes, and of course, 80% of people used their flash anyway. So as a result, they had to ban it totally.

Then, as I mentioned earlier, it was the wonderful gnocchi for lunch, which I found in a little street, I think I was in Rialto at the time. The only way to really see Venice is to throw the map away, and wonder aimlessly. There are many signs on the walls back to the main bridges and piazzas, so you can easily reorient yourself when you need to, but you can't see Venice with a map. Even if you wanted to. So many of the smaller streets aren't named on the maps, or the streets are signed anyway. It's a complete maze.

There are, of course, gondolas everywhere, and you can hear them from either the signing that often accompanies them, or the "Gondola!" shouts. The Gondoliers themselves are a bit of a disappointment - only about half wear the striped tops, hat and neckerchief, and most of them are fat, old, balding men. I think they need to revisit the job description.

I visited the I Frari and saw Titian's Madonna of the Assumption, then wondered through the streets, looking in all of the wonderful shops. I couldn't leave Venice without a mask (or two) and amongst the hundreds of shops, one pulled me in. I discovered why when I went in - the masks are hand painted by the show owner himself, and so they didn't have that mass produced look of most of the others. You really need to look around in Venice, and trust to your instincts - a lot of it is just mass produced now, but if you really take the time to look, you'll find the items that are more individual. The masks in this shop were also really well priced - getting something hugely inferior back home would have cost me at least four times as much - I know, I've looked.

Glass seems to be different - you definitely need to pay more for better quality. Not all of it is Venetian glass, but it's all well signed generally, whether it's Venetian or imported. But even the local stuff varies greatly - and you do need to pay more if you want something decent. It's still not expensive, but more than some of the again mass produced stores on the tourist strips. It's well worth the difference though. You can get anything you can image - from glasses to plates and bowls, jewellery, general trinkets... some tacky of course, but so many beautiful things too.

This is my last night in Venice. Tomorrow I'll spend the morning and some of the afternoon, before heading off to Milan, my last stop in Europe.