Thursday Oct 12 – Monday Oct 16.
Venice is so enchanting; magical in so many ways. What we would have torn down, they repair the old fashioned way. We came across a worker who was repairing the street - a large cobble stone must have either been uplifted or sunken below the level of the street – we watched as he scraped around it to loosen the mortar, raising it up, replacing sand and small stones into the hole, and then tapping it down into place with a heavy wooden stump.
We would have paved over it with blacktop. We walked for hours, taking pictures of people, places and things. We stopped to sample the coffee, gelatos and dolce. The pace is different, you see people meeting friends, sitting & chatting in the piazzas. No one is in a hurry. They embrace and enjoy life savoring each and every moment, and before you know it you are being taken over by that feeling…. love is in the air. The love for everything that life has to offer and you want to slow down your pace and enjoy it.
So we walked around, going in and out of churches and looking in store windows, stopping to eat something wonderful, sitting and people watching and Jene was now really glad he made this trip.
We went to the Peggy Guggenheim museum and saw numerous Picassos, Pollack’s, etc, but I was impressed with the children’s room which featured the art of a 6 year old, with a quote from Picasso saying it took him a lifetime to learn how to paint like a child. In a second room – strung up were paintings from other kids and a book filled with even more; plus tables and chairs with papers and paints for visiting kids to express themselves.
There are 2 shops that still make the famed carnival masks in Venice (most are now made in the orient somewhere) if we had the time we would have signed up for a 2-hour mask making class in their studio. Jene bought 2 – one plain white to be painted later and another female mask in gold and black. Donning the mask, makes you feel all sorts of enticing, because you can be anyone or anything you want. It was fun. The shop we went to is the one that made the masks for Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise’s Eyes Wide Shut movie. I felt so glamorous pretending to be Nicole. We took waterbuses and walked for hours. We went in search of a mosaic school that has 2 weeks classes – you can actually live in their quarters while taking lessons. (Maybe next trip we’ll sign up for the class) Up and down bridges again into the Jewish Ghetto It was Sunday and although we found the school, we knew it would be closed so we had our only non- Italian meal in a kosher restaurant. Our course we went to San Marco’s Piazza and the cathedral was magnificent glittering in gold mosaics. I did not feed the pigeons nor did I let any land on my head for the traditional photo opt. We watched brides & grooms getting their pictures taken in the midst of the “dirty birds” and we listened to the bands on the square playing songs from both Italian classic and American classic movies. . So much romance… So you sit on the steps, basking in the warmth of the sun and although you are in a crowd, you feel that it is just the 2 of you watching a movie unfold around you.
We went to Murano Island and watched the glass blowers roll molten glass onto the long metal tubes and with a puff of air blow the glass into various shapes. Using tools that haven’t changed in centuries to snip and twist into shapes. Had to buy a few small pieces and looked in some of the artisans shops. Jene took tons of pictures and I snapped off a few myself with my little point and shoot camera.
Every meal was a treat; luckily I think I walked off most of the calories I took in
We didn’t get over to Burano Island –famous for lace or to any other of the islands. San Michele was recommended for it’s beautiful cemetery’s statues.
So much to do and so little time to do it in. Monday night we boarded our midnight train to Naples. I had never done that before. I booked a first class sleeper car and Jene climbed into the upper berth. I was too excited; Jene was lulled by the rocking of the train; I fell in & out of sleep.