The alarm went off at 5:30am and I had everything laid out; in the order I needed it, to dress and leave the cabin in the dark. I went up to the Panorama Buffet to get a decaf Americano and then out on the Panorama Terrace to see what there was to see. That early, not one darn thing, and it was very cold and windy to boot. I retreated to the Panorama Buffet and had my first cream of wheat of the morning in an attempt to warm up. While I ate, I went to the Maps.me app to see exactly where the Pacific Princess was. We were still in the Adriatic, but were about 30 minutes from reaching the islands at the eastern edge of Venice. By 6:15am, as the earliest light of the day was appearing in the east, the first lights of Venice were appearing in the west. I left the warmth of the Panorama Buffet and went out on Deck 10...
...and gasped from the cold and the bitter wind. This was not going to be easy, but my desire to watch our sail in to Venice won out. Wearing a headband with my hood pulled up and tightened around my face, and gloves, I joined the handful of equally determined passengers to watch as the sun rose and we entered the Grand Canal. And as soon as the Pacific Princess rounded the corner of the Giudecca Canal to the north to dock at the maritime port, I beat a hasty retreat to the cabin to warm up.
The Church of Santa Maria Elisabetta
The Campanile (bell tower) of St. Mark's with the Doge's Palace (on the right)
and the National Library (on the left). You may be able to make out the
Columns of San Marco and San Todaro in the plaza near the waterfront.
At the junction of the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal,
the Basilica of Santa Maria Della Salute (aka The Salute) with the Punta della Dogana
(an art museum, formerly a customs building) in the foreground
The middle (yellow) building is the National Archeological Mueseum, near St. Mark's Square
The Pacific Princess slowly traveled along the Giudecca Canal to the Maritime Port...
The bell tower is part of St. George's Anglican Church
(It's not just the Pisa bell tower that leans!)
The Church of Santa Maria del Rosario (aka Gesuati)
G was out and about, and I knew he would not have been on Deck 10 in the cold, so I went to the buffet to find him, and had my second bowl of cream of wheat and second coffee in an attempt to warm up. It was about 9am when we finally walked off the ship, looking a bit like Nanook of the north wearing layer upon layer of every piece of outerwear we'd brought with us. The one positive thing is that the sun was shining brightly and we knew we'd get some good photos today.
We walked over to the main transportation hub of Piazzale Roma where we purchased two day ACTV passes good for unlimited vaporetto and ACTV bus rides. We decided to take the slow vaporetto (#1) to Piazza San Marco because we were early and I wanted to again listen to Rick Steves' audio tour about the Grand Canal.
Vaporetto #1 at the transportation hub of Piazzale Roma
(you can see a train in the background)
The Church of San Geremia
It's a Venetian delivery truck!
One of my favorite parts of Venice was seeing this narrow canals...with more footbridges
The Galleria Giorgio Franchetti (aka Ca' d'Oro)
Venetian traffic
The yellow-banded barge on the right is a vaporetto stop.
Quintessential Venice~
The Rialto Bridge with gondolas in the foreground and the Bell Tower of San Bartolommeo on the right
San Toma gondola station
A traghetto crossing the Grand Canal (because four bridges are simply not enough!)
San Samuele vaporetto stop with the bell tower of the Church of San Samuele Profeta behind it
I remember wondering aloud to G at this point how many bell towers Venice has. I was intensely curious about it and looked it up when I next had internet. Well, it's 107 (seriously). I was fascinated. If you are, too, click here to get more information from Wikipedia.
A rather plain footbridge by Venetian standards
The Accademia Bridge across the Grand Canal
Love the striped poles!
I liked this particular gondolier because he wore the traditional hat (though a jacket covered the traditional striped jersey).
It was fun to see all the boat traffic on the canal, some hauling garbage and boxes and another with stacks of sand and cans of paint. We disembarked at San Zaccaria stop and walked to St. Mark's Basilica. The wait to enter that can stretch for 45 minutes or longer during the summer season was nonexistent today; we walked right in and listened to Rick Steves' audio tour for the Basilica. The lights in the Basilica were on from 11:30a to 12:30pm; it was much more impressive a sight with the lights on. I continued my practice of lighting a candle in each church we visit, this time in the north transept of the Basilica. While entrance to the Basilica is free; there is a small charge for its three museums: the Treasury, the Golden Altarpiece and the San Marco Museum. We opted to skip these.
St. Mark's Basilica, named for the patron saint of Venice
The winged lion of St. Mark's, the symbol of the city of Venice
I was a little under impressed by St. Mark's Square. I'm not certain what I was expecting but it wasn't the big open space with lots of souvenir carts and even more pigeons. We next went to the nearby Doge's Palace, again with no line at all. The doge was the ruling duke of Venice, once the wealthiest city in the world, and the palace was meant to display the wealth and power of the republic. The huge Hall of the Grand Council was amazing. It holds 2600 people at one time and contains portraits of the first 76 doges. My favorite thing in the Doge's Palace was Paradise, the largest oil pointing in the world by artist Tintoretto. It depicts Jesus and Mary surrounded by 500 saints.
The Doge's Palace with the Columns of San Marco and San Todaro in the foreground
The Doge's Palace. The doges were the rulers of Venice.
We walked across the Bridge of Sighs, so named because it connects the Doge's Palace to the prison. Justice was meted out and sentences assigned in the palace, and the unlucky accused were walked across the bridge to the prison, sighing at their last glimpse of Venice, perhaps for a lifetime.
The Bridge of Sighs
It was after 3pm by then, and we were cold and hungry (but mostly the former). We took the #1 vaporetto from the San Zaccaria stop to the Piazzale Roma. Turning right after leaving the vaporetto platform leads right to the footbridge under the People Mover, making the trip back to the port as short as possible but it is still 30 minutes or more from the vaporetto to the ship. The People Mover is a rather useless transportation mode from the port to the Piazzale Roma, but it is at least as far to walk from the ship to the People Mover as it is to walk from the People Mover to the Piazzale Roma. If you are physically able to do one, you can most likely do the other too, saving 1,50€ per person. It's a shame that the port is as convoluted as it is; to walk directly from the ship to the closet vaporetto would take 5 minutes, but having to route through the port and out past security quadruples that time.
The funny thing is that when we washed up and went to the Panorama Buffet for a quick bite to last us until dinner, we sat on the Panorama Terrace and it was fairly pleasant in the sun and protected from the wind. It was quite a different thing on the Grand Canal. We decided right then and there not to go back out again in the evening. In fact, when we went to dinner at 5:30pm, I wore my fleece pullover and G wore a flannel shirt. Style be damned; we were still cold to the bone.
We ate lightly and quickly (having just had a snack when we returned to the ship) and made it to the 6:45pm performance of the Venetian Chamber Orchestra. Fifteen musicians and one conductor on the tiny Cabaret Lounge stage, plus two opera singers who collectively sang five songs. We loved this performance the first time we saw it (the night we first boarded the Pacific Princess in Venice) and enjoyed it even more tonight (because we weren't tired and jet lagged).
Passengers will begin disembarking the Pacific Princess as early as 3am tomorrow morning. Ouch! We have two plans for our second day in Venice and will wait to see what the weather is before deciding. We have to be back on the ship by 3pm for a 4 pm sailaway tomorrow. 8f it's not a cloudy day, it should be a wonderful opportunity to see the lights of Venice come on just before sunset.
