Day 42: Venice (second day)

Today was truly the best day, weather-wise, that we've enjoyed in Venice. We are finally having the weather I'd imagined we'd have in early October and vice-versa. I guess it's no coincidence then that today was also our favorite day we've spent here. 

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. 

Day 41: Venice (first day)

I awoke around 2am, looked out the porthole at pea-soup fog and wondered if the Pacific Princess was going to be able to get into the port of Venice this morning. However, some slight docking noise about 4:30am awakened me and I looked out again to see the Pacific Princess was nearing its berth. Well, that was certainly good news for those people with flights out of Venice. Their flights might be delayed by the fog but at least they could disembark the ship. Though our cabin on Deck 3 midship was quiet as a tomb, we knew we couldn't sleep in. By 6am I was packing up my bathroom supplies and the few things I store in drawers and went to the buffet for coffee and a small breakfast. I don't know why I feel compelled to report on my choice of breakfast food, but today's was one slice of peanut butter toast and a banana. G joined me and by 7:15am we were back in the cabin getting packed up. 

We moved everything we could wheel or easily carry ourselves. Maria, our new cabin steward, is a dear and had our new cabin on Deck 4 ready to go and rearranged the way we like (word has gotten around) by 7:30am, so I began to wheel things to the new cabin. Since this move involved a change of decks, it required some time simply to repeatedly get an elevator on disembarkation morning, but it was nearly all done by 8am. Our original steward, Ionut (now a supervisor!) showed up with a cart and we placed all our hanging clothes on it and got them moved (twice as hard on the Pacific Princess because of those darn closet doors that must be closed to open the cabin door which must be closed to open the closet doors). The morning remained very foggy, and we took our time unpacking and getting settled until the Club Restaurant opened for lunch at noon. 

Our new cabin is a connecting ocean view cabin and has an upholstered chair instead of a loveseat. However, we already know that our next cabin, the same type on the same deck but not a connecting cabin, also has a chair. I really can't explain the difference but can only advise that you not assume that you will have one or the other on the Pacific Princess. We use both of them only as a place to lay things so it's not a loss to us either way.

Lunch was soup and that delicious salmon, and an orange soufflé for dessert. We next needed to walk all that food off, and were happy to see a little sun come out around 1:30pm. We walked off the ship (we had the coveted Berth 108 today, saving us nearly 10 minutes of walking to get out of the port). Once in Piazzale Roma we simply explored Venice by foot today.  People say you can't get lost in Venice and in one sense that's right- it is an island, after all- but, darn, it's certainly easy to take the longest way possible to get anywhere. Our original intention was to walk across all four bridges over the Grand Canal, and it was easy to reach the first two, at Piazzale Roma and the train station at Ferrovia. We wandered through the train station and I was amazed at all the great stores located in the terminal. There's a Sephora and a MAC store, to name just two I noticed. And we had to take photos of all the pastries and gelatos in the shops outside the station. So decadent and colorful!

 

In Italy, these sorts of religious shrines are everywhere along public streets. 

Not sure that's a good thing...but they're there. 

 

The Piazzale Roma vaporetto area from the Piazzale Roma bridge 

(There is a great grocery store about 3/4 of the way down in the line of buildings in the left). 

 

Crossing the Piazzale Roma bridge 

 

Near the Ferrovia train station, gelato and doughnuts 

 

 

 

 

How do Venetians stay so slim in the midst of all of these temptations?  

They walk everywhere and climb lots of stairs over bridges. 

We soon realized that we were spending way too much time looking and would not be able to cross all four bridges today. We decided to check out the canals and alleys on the east side of the Grand Canal and, for the first time, we began to see Venice as its residents do, and not just the tourist areas. We loved seeing all the small squares between a block of buildings that held wells dating back hundreds of years. It wasn't hard to imagine people living in close quarters and getting their water and doing laundry in the squares. 

 

 

We were seeing some beautiful fall colors!

 

Following maps when some 'streets' are narrow tunnels under buildings is not easy!

 

 

 

 

My favorite store was a mask store we passed. The masks were beautifully detailed. We had just watched a Rudy Maxa Smart Travels in Venice this morning while we were settling in our new cabin and he had talked about the frightening, long-beaked masks that doctors wore when treating patients with the plague in the Middle Ages. The intention of the mask was to protect the doctor but even moreso to frighten away the evil spirits believed to cause the illness. Sure enough, this shop had those kinds of masks too. 

 

 

 

Finally it was getting close to sunset (if the sun had lasted this afternoon, which it didn't) and we knew we had to find our way back to Piazzale Roma before dark. We ended up just following the flow of people; we figured they were heading either to the Piazzale Roma or the train station. Finally things started to look familiar, and we managed to reboard the ship just as it got dark. 

After a quick clean up, we had dinner in the Club Restaurant (it was open seating tonight) and made it to the 6:15pm performance of the Venetian Chamber  Orchestra. We sat where we had a full on view of the cellists. One of them had kept us highly entertained last cruise with his expressive movements and his 7" long hair. He'd shake his head so vigorously as he played that he looked like a wild child. Well, guess who got a very short haircut?  He's still expressive, but he no longer looks like Albert Einstein at the end of each piece of music. 

 

 

The soprano was a hoot, and could be comically funny while singing beautifully. 

 

 

 

The typewriter song

 

The alarm clock song 

We left the Cabaret Lounge and walked right into the Pacific Princess showband pianist and bass player performing jazz in the Casino Lounge. It was like having professional musicians entertaining us in our own living room. We settled into comfortable chairs, listening to them until they finished and then returned to the Cabaret Lounge for the second performance of the Venetian Chamber Orchestra. Yes, we enjoyed them that much. 

But we were tired then, and walked down just one deck and right to our new cabin in about 30 seconds. Our cabin certainly is conveniently located!  We are overnighting in Venice and have until 3:30pm tomorrow to walk across those two remaining bridges and check out a couple of churches along the way. It's hard to think it's our last day in Venice this season but something tells me we'll be returning in the future. 

And that makes life very good! :-)