Venice September 7

 Friday, September 7                   (4.3 miles total on the pedometer)

We met Pat and Lou at 8:30 a.m. and decided to go off in search of an “American” breakfast. On our way, we found and explored the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, a beautiful church, which opened in 1681.

   

We headed off in a different direction and ended up wandering through a delightful, quiet, picturesque neighborhood; unfortunately, without restaurants that offered any kind of breakfast. We ended up back at the hotel, where we thankfully had 15 minutes to wolf down some food before they stopped serving breakfast. 
 

Our next stop was the Peggy Guggenheim Museum a few blocks away. This was a really interesting place. The museum is located in her former home where she spent time collecting modern art. She collected most of her works between 1938 and 1946. She developed friendships with a lot of artists before they became important and then bought their work while it was still affordable. The story has it that Jackson Pollock sent her to Europe with a laundry list of artists from which to purchase pieces.

There was a man at the Museum, who looked a little like Salvador Dali.          

Around the corner from the museum we found a shop that sold very realistic sculptures of everyday items such as umbrellas, blouses and leather satchels—all carved out of wood.

By now we were so hungry and tired that we settled on a “tourist trap” restaurant by our hotel for lunch. It was right on the water with lovely out-door seating and included a cover charge and a service charge for the privilege, but we didn’t care. I ordered a ham, artichoke and mushroom pizza. Greg got a Nicoise salad, which was really good. Vegetables seem to always be an afterthought in Italy. Also, the only salad dressing we ever saw was a bottle of vinegar and a bottle of oil. Ironically, they don’t have Italian dressing. Ha ha. Ranch does not exist.

 I ordered my soda and asked for ice. They brought me a bowl of ice. It felt like they were saying, “we don’t know what you want this for, but here you go.” I was surprised they didn’t charge me for it. We ended up having a relaxing long lunch.

After a brief rest, it was finally time for our escorted tour to begin. We were to meet our guide, Donato Chmura, at 4 p.m. in the garden of our hotel. Here is his back-story. He is a Canadian with a beard and a ponytail, who still owns a 1957 VW Bug. His real name is Don, but when he moved to Italy there was no translation for his name, so he made up his own. He has lots of friends in every city he visits and really knows his Italian history. He had an interesting story to share about almost everything we saw. Here is a quote from an interview about him.

How did you get involved with Rick Steves and tour guiding?

I met Rick in the late 1980s in Gimmelwald, Switzerland, when I was looking after the Youth Hostel there. We talked one evening about all different kinds of things until about 2 in the morning and before we parted ways, he asked me if I'd like to be a tour guide for him. I was allowed to sleep on it that night and tell him in the morning before he continued on his way. Well, I slept on this new idea of becoming a tour guide for the next five years. In 1993, I finally decided to accept his offer and I've been guiding tours now for nearly 17 years. I sometimes think that perhaps I should've taken him up on his offer when he first made it but I've learned that there's a time and place for everything.

He spent an hour telling us what to expect and giving us some good tips including a map of Venice. He held up a map of the city and pointed out that it looks like a fish, with the Grand Canal snaking through the body and St. Mark’s Square located where it would “poop.” We also met the other 21 people that would comprise our group. 




I “introduced” myself by telling the group about my idea that instead of wearing my money belt around my waist, I could wear it on my back with the strap pulled up over my boobs. Oddly, no one had thought of that before. I tend to think outside the box.

To save Donato from having to count us all the time, we were each to pick someone we didn’t know to be our buddy for the rest of the trip. Then at various times, he would announce a “Buddy Check” where we would have to account for each of our partners. My buddy, Judy, was a cute, fun-loving woman from Chicago traveling with her husband, John.

Our first excursion was a walk to our “welcome dinner,” by way of St. Mark’s Square and the Rialto Bridge. During this walk, we learned the secret of how to get around Venice without a map. It seems that many streets were not named and most of the maps were incorrect. Donato explained that in the main part of Venice, there are three landmarks that everyone navigates by; St. Mark’s Square, the Rialto Bridge and the Accademia Gallery (near our hotel). Directions to these were posted on the sides of buildings in each square. You just needed to find the sign to the place you were going and keep going straight until you saw another sign telling you to turn. The challenge was that the directions came in many forms. It could be anything from a metal sign, a name and an arrow painted on the side of building or sometimes just a piece of paper taped to a wall. 

We arrived at our restaurant where we sat at one long table and enjoyed a Caprese salad and pasta with, you guessed it, seafood. The group enjoyed free wine, and I got to have all the “naturale” (no gas) water I could drink. 

After dinner, we were all treated to dessert at the gelato stand across the street. I had strawberry and Kit Kat flavors. I was surprised to see American candy mixed in. It seemed one step away from a Ted Drewes’ Concrete back in St. Louis.

Donato left us in St. Mark’s Square, confident that we could find our way back to our hotel on our own. He had pointed out a landmark for us, a statue of a man holding a scroll that points towards our hotel. He called it the “book shitter.” Here is some information I found about it.

The statue’s nickname is il Cagalibri  (the “book” – um – “pooper”), in reference to the unfortunately placed stack of books behind him, representing his prolific literary output, upon which he is almost sitting! 

The four of us walked to the nearby Bridge of Sighs. 

We then decided to get a drink at one of the overpriced touristy restaurants on St. Mark’s Square, that we had avoided on our earlier visit. 


 

Following Donato’s advice, instead of paying 12 Euro for a drink at a table, we stood at the bar where we could still listen to the music and got the same drink for 3 Euro. Here we met up with two other couples from our tour: my buddy, Judy, and her husband, John, and their friends, Kenny and Debbie. Everyone, except me, ordered a drink--either Limoncello, an Italian lemon liqueur; an Aperol Spritz, an orange liqueur with Prosecco and soda; or a Campari Spritz, a bitter liqueur with Prosecco and soda. I found each one worse than the other. We eventually walked back to the hotel and crashed.