Exploring Venice

Thursday, November 11, 2010 Day 134

The weather for our entire Venice stay was a disappointment. We awoke to gray skies both mornings and the fog never entirely dissipated. We ate breakfast and went to the dock to catch a vaporetto to the island of Murano. As we passed the Colonna Restaurant, we saw workers exiting with some sort of building materials and speculated that perhaps the restaurant was closed for renovations.

We took a water bus, called a vaporetto, to Murano. On the way to Murano, we passed the Isola de San Michele, which is the burial island for Venice. Napoleon decreed, when he conquered the city, that no one was to be buried on any of the other islands, so this island, which had been a prison island, became the cemetery for Venice. In Murano, we visited the glass museum, which was fascinating, and viewed this enormous blue Murano glass sculpture. Hungry, we went in search of lunch. Roger had spaghetti with ham, egg and cheese. I had spaghetti with clam sauce. There were about 35 whole clams in the spaghetti, and I had to pluck each dime-sized clam out of it’s shell before eating it. It was quite good, and no more work than shelling and eating shrimp or crawfish. While on the island of Murano, we bought a vase and a lovely necklace for me. On the way back we saw an interesting sculpture of two gentlemen in a boat. I am unable to find anything about the sculpture on the web - if anyone can clue me in, I will be appreciative.

We took another vaporetto from Murano around to a stop near St. Mark’s Square, then switched and took another one up the Grand Canal. The lovely old buildings seemed right out of a movie - Dangerous Beauty comes to mind. For the first time we saw the gondolas for which Venice is famous, and the myriad other boats that ply the waters of the Canal. We disembarked near our hotel, and wandered around a while before heading back to our room. We dropped into a small restaurant which purported on the outside to be a tea and coffee shop, but when we entered, a gentleman sitting at the front wanted to know if we were here to eat. Apparently if we were, we would have to return, as the restaurant was not ready to serve dinner. We said we just wanted some tea or coffee, and he motioned us in. We were hoping for tea and pastries, but there did not seem to be any of the pastries we sought. We had tea, which was really good after the cold. We left then, and wandered even more than we wanted - we got confused and had trouble finding our hotel. We finally got ourselves straightened out and found our hotel and collapsed in our room.

In the evening we went back out to La Colonna and this time it was open. We had a lovely dinner of wine and pasta and fish. We watched with interest as the waiter brought out the fish dishes and prepared them for serving by skinning and boning them. I would have supposed that would be the chef’s job, but not here. Afterward, it was good to take another hot shower and retire for the night.