Part 7.0: Venezia

I’m going to be up front with you: No amount of photos and no expression in words will be able to sufficiently communicate how fabulous Venice is. So if you don’t want to bother to keep reading and instead would like to click to your nearest travel reservation website to make plans to go, I wouldn’t blame you one bit. In fact, I encourage it.

That being said, I’m going to split Venice up into several parts. Mainly because I want to prolong writing about it.

(I should insert here that between Sicily and Venice, we had a day at sea sailing the Mediterranean. We slept in. We ate breakfast. We visited the ship’s library and picked out books. We pulled deck chairs up to the railing. And we read all day facing the beautiful sea. The only reasons I got up were to use the restroom, to get coffee and to grab a plate of the delicious Jamaican BBQ served on Deck 3. We had three days like this in which I finished a 600-page novel. Since then, I’ve tried to imagine ways to make money living like this; nothing comes to mind yet.)

And now back to Venice. From the ship we walked right in and over one of the 404 bridges. These were some of the first sites we saw:

Dreamy. Perfect.

We headed to the Frari Church, or as they say in Italy, the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. I took a Renaissance history class in the fall of 2010; I had to write a paper on a piece of art of my choice, so I chose Titian’s The Assumption of the Virgin. Wouldn’t you know this exact piece hangs in the Frari Church in Venice. I did not know at the time of writing the paper that I would be traveling to Venice in the near future, so naturally when I found out I knew I HAD to find the church and see the painting for myself. And just as promised in my research, the bold colors and lines of the painting impact and draw in the viewer upon entering the church. I can’t explain how thrilling this was (see photo).

OK, after I pulled myself together, we moved on. Near the church was this little cafe. Cooffee to go anyone?

We had a map, but we decided to put the map away in favor of meandering and letting the bridges, walkways and canals take us where they would. This was the best decision ever. More to come, of course.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6.

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