Friday, November 1, 2024
After a 45-minute boat ride from the ship to the dock by the Piazza San Marco, we enjoyed a few hours wandering around Venice on a beautiful sunny pleasant morning. We had about an hour and a half by ourselves before we had to be back at the Piazza to meet our tour guide for an hour’s tour through the piazza and into the back streets and over the canals back to the boat.
Ken and I had been to Venice before in 2005, so we just wanted to wander the streets and canal bridges and enjoy a coffee break at a canal-side cafe, so after a few pictures of San Marco cathedral and the Doge’s palace, we left the piazza and ambled along, taking pictures when something looked interesting.
Top: San Marco/St. Mark’s Church front; Middle: Detail from the Doge’s Palace (the Governor of Venice in olden days); Bottom: San Marco Piazza
Besides the requisite souvenir shops, stalls, and stands everywhere with tacky magnets, keychains, bags, and scarves, Venice has tons of stores selling phenomenal Murano blown glass from souvenir trinkets to beautiful large art pieces, which were fun to peer at through the windows.
Another of the fun shops were those selling masks and costumes for Carnivale or Fat Tuesday, the day before Lent begins. We learned that the word Carnivale came from the old Italian for “carne” meaning meat and “vale” meaning not eat. Back in the day, people wore full face masks with hinged lower pieces so they could eat with the mask on. It was quite a wild party time with much debauchery without knowing who you were debaching with!
Another great mask seen along with the beautiful Carnivale masks was the plague mask, worn by doctors when they treated plague victims, but also so their rich patients would not know they were treating plague victims. The masks have a long enclosed beak in which the wearer put herbs, spices, vinegar, and anything else they thought would protect them from catching it, not knowing at the time what really caused the illness. (I’m sorry, Teresa, I didn’t take the picture at the best shop with tons of black leather plague masks, thinking I would see them again…and didn’t!)
We also learned that the word quarantine came from Venice during the plague time, because any entering merchant ships had to check into the customs house, and then go back out to sea to anchor for 40 days and report back that all were still well. Forty in Italian is “quaranta,” but in the Venetian dialect it was “quarantina.”
The Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal
Ken enjoying espresso on the Grand Canal
Canals and gondolas
Some of the narrow streets and a very interesting dragon lamp on the corner of a building!
After we returned to the ship, it was time for lunch, during which the ship left port, and we were on our way to the other side of the Adriatic to Split, Croatia, landing at 8:00 am tomorrow morning, in time for our excursions. I went to afternoon tea at 4:00, with live music, a tea and coffee menu and a double-decker serving piece with four different yummy sweet things on the top plate and four different tea sandwiches on the bottom plate. And then the server came round with scones, butter, and jam. I only had time for the four sweets and the scone before heading to the theater for a port talk about Split (and I was still full from lunch…!). Needless to say, there is not enough time to eat all the wonderful food that is available on the ship! One of the tour guides said that the closets in our cabins somehow manage to shrink our clothes during the voyage…! And of course, I still managed to find room for all of the great Italian specialties the chef laid out for dinner…!
I better get to sleep as we have more walking and enjoying ancient buildings tomorrow in Split…
Tangible Roots 
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