Venezia

When we first arrived at my parent's house we sat down and made a list of places to see and things to do in Italy. Our biggest, most capital letter day in Italy was our day in Venice. It was Emily's favorite city and probably in the top two for everyone else. We drove to a town just outside the city itself where we parked the van and then took a train to the main station in Venice. Inside the train station, Venice looked like any other European city - but then we stepped outside and got our first glimpse of the canals and buildings of Venice.

Our itinerary for the day was not specific. We set out in the general direction of St. Marks Square and stopped whenever we saw something interesting. I found it interesting to see all of the people with luggage making their way through the city. Since we started at the train station, there were a lot of people around us that had just arrived and were trying to find their hotels. I guess there are only two options for travel once you're inside Venice - take a boat or take a walk.

Abigail was certainly the most European-looking of our group

We hadn't been walking long when we stopped at a church where you can view the body of Santa Lucia. My mom wrote about St. Lucy in her weekly email, so I'm going to add her information here:

The sign over the door said in questo tempio si trova il corpo di Santa Lucia (In this temple you find the body of St. Lucy). I didn’t know who St. Lucy was, but I know her Saint’s day (December 13) is an important religious holiday, so I couldn’t pass up a chance to see her body. It turns out only part of her body is there. She lived in Sicily in the 4^th century and was martyred and buried there. Then about 400 years later, her body was moved to the Abruzzo region on the west coast of central Italy. From there, in 972 it was taken to Metz in northeast France. While it was there one of her arms was sent to a monastery in Germany.

At that point the story gets confused. One account holds that the rest of her body somehow ended up in Constantinople. When the French captured that city in 1204, they found some relics that were said to be Saint Lucy, and the Doge of Venezia acquired them for a monastery in Venezia. In 1513, the Venetians gave her head to Louis XII of France, and he put it in the cathedral in Bourges. Another version claims the head was brought to Bourges from Rome. In 1981 thieves stole all her bones (except the head) from the Church of San Geremia in Venezia. Police recovered them on a little over a month later on her feast day. But parts of her corpse can be found in churches in Rome, Naples, Verona, Lisbon, Milan, Germany, France, and Sweden. She’s very well-traveled for a dead person.

I was expecting to see a big stone sarcophagus that would maybe have a sculpture of St. Lucy on the top. I did not expect to be able to file behind Snow White's glass coffin to get a peek at Lucy's mummified feet?! Okay Italy, that's kind of gross...

Opposite the church I saw this little restaurant and took a quick picture of the awning because I was born in southern Italy in a town called Brindisi. It probably doesn't mean much to anyone but me and maybe my siblings.

Our progress towards St. Mark's was kind of stop and go because there was so much to see. I was on a mission to find a specific kind of necklace for my friend Larisa while we were in Venice. I'm pretty sure I slowed everyone down as I stopped at almost every shop selling jewelry to at least look in the windows and search for the necklaces. I did find them though, so the slow pace was worth it!

It was very cool to finally cross over one of Venice's famous canals and see the boats and the little entryways to the buildings that line the waterways. The girls were both sad and scared when they learned that Venice is sinking. We had to especially reassure the youngest girls that it wasn't sinking quickly and definitely wouldn't happen that day but it's easy to see in the picture above where the water has risen and damaged the buildings. I guess we were lucky to be there on a dry day because apparently on rainy days in the winter months or at high tide, the city slowly fills with water. There were even wooden platforms set up in St. Mark's Square to make it possible to sight see and get around without a pair of fishing waders on flooded days.

This picture is for Jared - there are even Doner Kebabs in Venice, Italy!

What did I hear from the shop worker right after snapping this image? No pictures! Whoops...we'll just put down the gloriously fluffy hats and walk away.

Since so many tourists visit Venice there are a lot of touristy shops and stands and many of them are selling the same types of things - carnival masks, Murano glass, scarves, and fans. There were multiple locations of the same stores all over the place. Kind of like Starbucks, but instead of coffee they were selling jewelry, glass, or tights. Yep, a whole store for tights and socks and they were all over town! There were some stores that were different and their window displays drew me right in. The store in the top photo had some seriously amazing masks and I loved all of the glass ornaments hanging at different heights and filling up the window. The store in the bottom photo had a ridiculous assortment of pasta in all shapes, sizes, and colors.

The canals are Venice's streets so the only way around the city, other than walking, is by boat. There are water taxis, water buses, and gondolas. Gondolas are to Venice what hansom cabs are to Central Park so we were excited to see some navigating the canals - not excited enough to actually hire one to ferry us around, but still they were pretty neat to see.

After getting a little turned around and a little backtracking, we did eventually make it to St. Mark's Square. We were able to visit the Basilica with it's amazing murals, see the Doge's Palace, and feed the pigeons. It wasn't until after Natalie had fed the birds the rest of her PB&J that we saw the sign about not feeding the birds in the square. Apparently, that has been a law in Venice since 2008.

You don't even want to know how difficult it was to get this picture of the girls on the Bridge of Sighs. Natalie wasn't cooperating and didn't want to be in the picture, but I wanted at least one decent picture of all our girls together in Venice. I was done for the day so I tried bribery and then I tried threats. Neither worked and we ended up with Natalie in tears and our window for a stranger free photo on the crowded bridge was closing. In the end I had a quick talk with Natalie explaining how much I wanted to take this one picture, asked mom to give me bunny ears to make sure I'd get a smile, and then pressed the shutter button and hoped for the best.

Finding our way back to the train station was an adventure that involved crossing the Rialto Bridge several times. After a while things started looking familiar and we actually knew where we were. All that was left to do was find a bathroom (harder than you might think) and get some train tickets to take us back to the car.