After breakfast in the Club Restaurant and then phoning Room Service to change out some minibar items, G ran over to the small market right at the pier and purchased a case of fuzzy water...er, water with gas, and brought it back on the ship. I am probably set until Fort Lauderdale and this leaves the entire minibar for G to consume. We're both happy with that. We then walked off the ship together and walked the familiar route to Piazzale Roma. We had wanted to walk through Venice to cross all four bridges over the Grand Canal but discovered yesterday that that's not an easy thing to do. In fact, last evening I used the Maps.me app to plan a walking route to the Rialto Bridge (possible) and then from the Rialto Bridge to the Accademia Bridge and that's where I ran into trouble. The walking route had us boarding a vaporetto for a portion of the trip. In other words, you can't get there from here.
The Ferrovia Bridge over the Grand Canal at the train station
We had some of the best lighting for photos today
This gondolier was great; hat AND striped jersey not covered by a jacket
Given that, we bought just 75 minute passes for the vaporetto and took the #2 to the Rialto Bridge. There we disembarked and crossed over the Rialto on the outside of the bridge and then back over it on the inside between the many shops. Even today, clearly the off-season with just two small ships in port, the crowds at the Rialto were crazy-making. (In fact, I didn't realize until we'd gotten home that I didn't take a single photo of the Rialto Bridge that day. It was too crowded with people.) It didn't help that the Rialto is under construction but we were not unhappy to quickly board vaporetto #1 up to the Accademia Bridge. The Accademia was much more sane and we enjoyed looking at all the gondolas and cafes around it. We went up and over the bridge and then back again and looked longingly at some of the food being eaten in the sidewalk cafes but we had one more stop to get to before our vaporetto tickets expired. We boarded a #1 vaporetto going back toward Piazzale Roma and rode it just a couple of stops to the Toma station. We knew that, from here, we could visit our next stop and walk back to the ship.
The beautiful- and less crowded- Accademia Bridge
The mossy slime on building doorsteps. I can imagine things get a bit smelly here in summer.
We stopped at an ultra-clean cafe for cappuccinos and to use the bathroom (about the same price as using the public WCs) and then continued to walk northwest through side streets much larger than where we found ourselves yesterday. Our goal was to reach the Frari Church, also known as Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. Most would rate this church lower than St. Mark's Basilica but I was much more impressed with it. The church is a Franciscan church whose name means Church of the Brothers in English and it features the work of three great Renaissance masters: Donatello, Giovanni Bellini, and Titian. I lost count of the number of masterpieces and incredibly ornate altars and even G enjoyed our visit. It was beautiful art in the setting for which it was designed, and just the perfect amount of it. It's well worth the. 3€ admission fee, and provided yet another candle-lighting opportunity.
All of the following photos were taken at the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari (which you can tell was my favorite church in Venice) and represent just a small percentage of the works of art found there:
I think this holy water fount used to be filled but now a simple howl of holy water is provided
The Altar of St. Anthony by several artists
A monument to the artist Titian erected almost 300 years after he died
The Altar of the Presentation by Giuseppe Porta detto il Salviati
Yet another candle lighting opportunity (I don't believe I missed many)
Sacristy (triptych by Giovanni Bellini)
The Bernardo Chapel (triptych by Bartolomeo Vivarini)
Vivarini triptych detail
The Assumption by Titian
The Chapel of St. Mark
The choir
The altar of Madonna of Ca' (meaning house of) Pesaro
Tomb of Doge Giovanni Pesaro
H Tomb of neoclassical Italian sculptor Antonio Canova
For the first time this season in Venice, we weren't racing against the clock to get back to the ship. We meandered through the well-marked streets to Piazzale Roma, and stopped into a bed and breakfast and a hotel to check prices and accommodations in case we get the opportunity to cruise from Venice again. We've decided Piazzale Roma is our favorite part of the city to stay in prior to boarding a cruise ship. We also stopped by a wine store to purchase a couple of bottles of Italian wine to take back to the ship. It was about 3:30pm when we reboarded the Pacific Princess and all onboard time wasn't until 4pm. Go us!
We were starving but wanted to get cleaned up for the evening first, and by that time the muster drill for those passengers who just boarded the Pacific Princess yesterday was underway. So we went up to the Pacific Lounge to await the PES hors doerves and our final sailaway from Venice. Disappointingly, it was pitch dark when we finally sailed just before 5pm. For those passengers who did the last cruise and this one, they arrived in Venice in the dark yesterday morning and left in the dark (or near dark) both 12 days ago and today. The only pretty sailaway we enjoyed was on October 4.
It was margaritas and chips and guacamole night in the PES Lounge and we scarfed down both margs and guac...but not so much that we went to dinner full. I chose a garden salad and the seafood pasta and sorbet for dessert and we took some Greek wine (I can't begin to tell you the name, because the label is Greek to me) but it's what I enjoyed last cruise in Rhodes and was a gift. It was a wonderful accompaniment to dinner.
The Welcome Aboard show at 7:45pm was the first time we've seen our new cruise director, Frank Castiglione, since he boarded yesterday. Frank had been CD for a couple of our Emerald Princess cruises last winter. Comedian Rikki Jay (another Brit...all of our guest entertainers have been from the U.K.) did a short show and I finally warmed to him enough to think about seeing his longer show in two nights. Crawling into bed, even one with these crap Pacific Princess mattresses, is simply the best feeling after a long day of walking a bazillion steps. Today was our fourth port day out of eight in a row; tomorrow in Koper, Slovenia is a sort-of sea day with a 2pm departure. Something tells me using the high speed WiFi in the port terminal will be a big part of our day.
