Here goes:
The occasional webcam
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Hello again. It's been a quick month and a half for us, but we're sure it'll just get quicker as we get closer to leaving. We left off last time just about to leave for Venice, and the bulk of this web update is about that trip.
Here goes: |
The occasional webcam |
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We flew to Venice on Thursday, March 25. We had a pleasant enough flight and arrived about noon. We took the water bus (the vaporetto) from the airport, which, while slow, was fun. A pleasant trip from the airport to Saint Mark's Square. There are private water taxis which whipped by us at about 3x our speed, but they also cost about 5x as much, and we couldn't see spending $100 on a taxi ride when the bus was more like $20. A picture of our water bus is on the left (click for bigger version).
We found our hotel just fine - the Londra Palace - a beautiful hotel along the lagoon just a few 'blocks' from St. Mark's. In 1877 Tchaikovsky stayed at the Londra Palace and wrote his Fourth Symphony in room 106. We didn't have a lagoon view, (or room 106) but we were in a really nice, quiet room. (We went posh this time - they even came in and turned the sheets down in the evening….)
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We got started right away, since we only had four days and there's plenty to see (118 islands, 170 canals and over 400 bridges if you have the time). We started at St. Mark's square - picture at right, click on it - and climbed (okay, they have an elevator) the Campanile, a 325-foot guard tower from the 8th Century that was rebuilt after a sudden collapse in 1902. Great views from up there! We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around, ending up at the Rialto bridge, the most famous of the three bridges that cross the Canal Grande; it is a walking city after all! The bridge is beautiful, but has basically become a tourist trap with souvenir shops all through the middle and extending down either side. Lots of Venetian glass and festival masks. We did book a tour of the "secret areas" of the Palazzo Ducale, or Doge's Palace for Saturday, more on that below.
We were pretty tired from our long walk around the city so we had a small rest (we napped every day - we're so pathetic!) before heading out to dinner at a very nice fish restaurant. The service was excellent, the food very good and the price a bit high! A nighttime stroll to finish off day one. Unfortunately, although we did a little walking each night, it wasn't quite warm enough to sit out in St. Mark's square and have a night cap.
On day two, there was a strike of public employees of some variety, which included museum workers. This meant that some of the sites we wanted to visit were closed that day. Oh well, go with the flow…. We did go to see the Basilica di San Marco: a grandiose and magnificent hodgepodge of Byzantine domes, mosaics, and plundered treasure from the Near East and Asia. Really beautiful basilica (no pictures allowed inside, sorry). Venice has many many beautiful churches but St. Mark's is the only one we went in. The outside scenery seemed much more interesting.
Did you know St. Mark's Square floods pretty often? We were lucky - no floods when we were there but there are raised walkways, about 2 feet off the ground, for use when it does flood. Guess we lucked out on that one.
We also got to go to the Peggy Guggenheim museum which was open. An interesting collection of contemporary art and sculpture. Probably not our favorite stop over the weekend, but there you go.
We took the water bus from St. Mark's up the Grand Canal and got a feel for the main highway of Venice. Lots of boats - buses, taxis, gondolas, freight boats. Imagine any truck (except big tractor-trailers) you might see on the road in your neighborhood - refrigerated delivery trucks, FedEx, a small crane - we saw all of these along the canals.
| Venice - click for bigger picture | ||||
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) St. Mark's, including the Campanile (Tower) |
) View from Campanile |
) Another view, looking over the Doge's Palace to the lagoon |
) Tom at the top of the Campanile |
) The Clock Tower - under repair (notice the bell ringers) |
) Rooftops of Venice (including St. Mark's) and the Doge's Palace |
) Dirty birds in St. Mark's |
) Looking out over the lagoon |
) Small canal off of the Grand Canal |
) Grand Canal - Byron's House |
) Canal view |
) Grand Canal |
) Construction boat with a crane! |
) Dry canal |
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More walking, this time to the ghetto - the Jewish area of the city. First we had lunch - delicious pizza. Thin crust, good cheese….yum. Back to site seeing: did you know that Venice has the world's first ghetto? It is an area of the city given to the Jews in 1516 as they were an important part of the city's economic life. The area was the old location of a foundry, or geto (pronounced jetto) in Italian. The word was pronounced geto (hard g) by the Jews and eventually became what we say today - ghetto. Some of the tallest buildings in Venice are here as the Jews were given special permission to build up to accommodate them. There is a 7-story building there, although it doesn't look that big because the floors are only 6 feet high. Not the best living conditions. A good history is available here: www.jewishvenice.org We took a tour of some of the synagogues (there are five in the very small area, two in active use) which were all orthodox and very beautiful (again, no pictures allowed).
More walking, resting and then a casual dinner out.
Saturday we took a tour of the Doge's Palace. The Doge was the administrative head of the city of Venice and he lived and managed affairs of state here. We started with the common areas of the palace - all very grandiose and beautiful. Humongous rooms -two stories high and massive - with gold and marble and wood and paintings by Tintoretto and others. Toby, sophisticated as she is, kept thinking that the palace would really be beautiful if they'd just lighten it up a bit. All that dark art work! There were sculptures of a lion's mouth in the wall where citizens were meant to put letters in denouncing people who did bad things. We also saw the inside of the famous Bridge of Sighs, where prisoners were reputed to have sighed as they were led across to torture or execution. This may or may not be true. After all the public stuff, we went on the secret tour to the parts of the palace. That secret tour was fascinating - taking us out of the public areas and into the back rooms where secret records were kept, public officials sat (very boring offices compared to the grandiose palace beyond), and where the jailors and torturers did their work. We got to see the cells, the eves of the roof, the torture area. One of the residents in the jail was the famous Casanova, who was imprisoned there in 1755 on charges of sorcery, but who actually successfully broke out of there 15 months later. It was fascinating to see the palace and then to tuck behind a door to this whole other world. All in all it was a great tour.
| Venice - click for bigger picture | ||||
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) Synagogue (used in the winter because it is heated) |
) Synagogue (summer synagogue, one we got to see) |
) Synagogue |
) Ghetto (barbed wire put up as a memorial to the fact that is used to be a ghetto) |
) Venetian art |
) More canal views |
) Canals... |
) Canals... |
) Street scene (dry land!) |
) Colorful storefront |
) A typical gondola - luxurious! |
) Toby and the gondolier |
) View from the gondola |
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) A door right on a canal (they're everywhere) |
) Rialto Bridge |
) Tom and Toby up close! Note our headless gondolier |
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We did manage to take a gondola ride that afternoon. Not cheap, but something that has to be done (I guess) when in Venice. It was really lovely and relaxing winding through the quiet canals as well as onto the big Canal Grande. And every now and then the sun would shine through and make it just glorious.
Our last stop of the day was at the Museo Civico Correr - a musuem of cultural and historical Venetian artifacts with some artwork, sculpture, documents, coins, pottery, old games and a variety of things. It is also connected to the archeological museum so we walked through there too. Actually a pretty nice museum.
On Sunday, we had a lazy morning and then did some walking around and a bit of shopping to finish up the trip. Toby says: Truth be told, we separated Sunday morning to do our final shop / walk around town. Tom is NOT a souvenir shopper, and by day 3 I've got no patience for his impatience. That's not entirely fair, because I know I'm a slow shopper and he does try to be patient with me. Still, I can't make up my mind with him outside the door. A happy reunion, a quick lunch and then it was back on the water bus to the airport, and back to England. A successful trip on all counts.
| Venice - click for bigger picture | ||||
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) Doge's Palace courtyard |
) More Doge's Palace courtyard |
) Golden Staircase, inside Doge's Palace |
) Bridge of Sighs (at night) |
) Inside the Bridge of Sighs |
) St. Mark's Cathedral |
) Cathedral up close |
) Another closeup |
) Cathedral entrance |
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We didn't do much for Easter (not in the religious sense anyway), but we did go to a community seder for Passover. It was very enjoyable, with about 50 people there. A bit long, but still had a good time and it was nice to be part of the community. We even met a young couple from Boston (but actually he was Canadian and she was Venezuelan) and had a good time chatting with them.
Ballroom dance lessons: We've had four ballroom dance lessons so far and we can now do the Social Foxtrot, the Square Tango, the Modern Waltz (as opposed to the Viennese Waltz which is faster) and now a very little bit of the Cha Cha. Not sure any of it will be useful at Autumn and Trevor's wedding, but it's been a real hoot. Our teachers are great and we're having a ball. Sharon and Steve are going to class with us (Sundays, 3-4pm) and we will probably have a private lesson or two with them before the wedding so we are more polished in "dances you can use at almost any wedding". Not sure if it'll really help though as at the moment we have trouble on Sunday nights remembering what we learned on Sunday afternoons - really! Oh well.
We're also taking yoga again on Monday nights. Classes seem better and more diverse this term, which is good. I'm also trying to get back to the gym, but it's a slow process. Motivation always starts in the brain and eventually, if you are lucky, it actually gets down to your feet which get you to the gym. Although I've been twice now, my motivation is still not quite where it should be. I'm just a lazy git at heart, and I know it. However, hope springs eternal.
Tom had a birthday in April - he turned 39. We had a lovely meal out with Sharon and Steve at a B&B on the Thames just south of Oxford. A delicious meal with friends in a beautiful setting. What more could you ask for? A meringue and raspberry dessert with a roman candle brought to your table to help the celebration perhaps? Got it. Much better than your bog-standard birthday candle, I must say. Sadly, that's about all Tom got for his birthday, at least from me. I've been really good up to now, but I couldn't think of anything this year. Any thoughts? Help me be a better wife. Please email me! Actually, I did perform an act of bravery in his honour: while he was showering that birthday morn, I captured a big spider (really, a big one) in the glass spider jar Tom keeps and dropped it out the window…..all by myself. I even held it in the jar until Tom got out of the shower so he could see what I'd done. Normally I would have Tom do that sort of thing. I stay as far away as I can from spiders while still being able to keep an eye on them so I know where they are at all times, you see. But it was a special day, after all.
His birthday was on Thursday and on Friday the gang went to Alex and Tim's for dinner - and to celebrate Tom's birthday. Tom had thought we could all go to a pub quiz or something but since there are none on Friday nights, we opened the 'pub quiz in a box' that Tim had and made our own. Great fun. Plus Alex made Sticky Toffee Pudding again - yum yum yum.
As for work, we've actually hired my replacement - Jane Taylor, who'll join us on the 1st of June. She seems like a really good fit and I think she'll do well. I'm already saying things like "Jane can do that when she gets here". Although I am truly sad to be leaving Akzo, I'm ready to pass over the torch and the responsibility. As a matter of fact, I wish she could start tomorrow and let me get some work done. I'm anxious to do a few things I haven't had the time to do (in 2.5 years!).
GuestsWe've had two visitors since our last missive - our friend Celeste, who was here a year ago around Xmas time and whom we met in Paris in late August last year, and my Aunt Doris.
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Celeste came just after we got back from Venice; she was in Rome while we were in Venice. We only had her for a few days but we managed to see a play (see below), have a nice meal out to celebrate (belatedly) her birthday, and do some touring of Oxford. We toured the Bodleian Library and took a "literary tour" of Oxford. The literary tour mostly took us around to the universities and told us which famous people went to which ones. We did get to go down some alleyways we hadn't explored before though, and we got to go into "The Painted Room", the room where Shakespeare stayed on his way to London from Stratford. It is a small room over what was a pub but it has these amazing painted walls. Very cool. The Bodleian Library is the main research library of the University of Oxford. It is also a copyright deposit library and it is huge, old and beautiful - many buildings and may stories beneath the ground.
| Oxford - click for bigger picture | |||
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) Bodleian Library - one entrance |
) Bodleian Library-Inside |
) Oxford's version of the Bridge of Sighs |
) The University Cathedral |
) Cathedral Ceiling |
) Remind you of Shrek? |
) Looking down on one of the colleges |
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The Sunday Celeste left, Aunt Doris and my cousin Liana arrived. I met them in London for the day to show them around a little - took them on the Tube, to see Covent Garden and to the Nat'l Portrait Gallery - and get them settled and then left them to do their thing all week. On Friday, Liana went home and I picked Aunt Doris up for Easter weekend in Oxford. It was her first trip outside of the US except for Canada and I wanted her to have a blast.
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So we ran her ragged going to Blenheim Palace, Bath for a day, to see the Cotswolds, to tour Oxford, and finally Windsor Castle. Of course we had dinner at the pub and took her out for a curry. Well, actually, she took us out for the curry. She seemed to enjoy it all and was an excellent guest. I'm really glad she made the trip. Hope she puts her new passport to more good use!
We went to see Norah Jones in London last week. She was really cute and put on a good show, but I think we all agreed that all of her stuff is fairly similar and is better listening than watching music. She and her musicians did, however, come to the front of the stage for a little country set that was really good.
PlaysBits & Bobs
And there you have it for this report.
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