An American in Venice

We left Florence and arrived to some overcast (but not yet rainy) weather in Venice. Our hostel was really more like a hotel, and although not centrally located, it was nicely positioned enough that walking to places wasn't a big deal. As you would imagine, I took some customary "look-the-street-is-a-river-and-not-pavement" pictures:

Above is one such example. Below, just after sunset outside of the Palazzo Ducale. 

Palazzo Ducale is just by San Marco, and when we were walking by the old prison (Prigioni Ducale), we saw that that night there was going to be a performance of two pieces of Bach as well as the headlining Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. Again, thank goodness for student discounts. We actually entered what was the old warden's keep and listened to a string sextet perform that evening after dinner. It was so cool.

Now, back to the churches. If there is one thing Italy is in no shortage of, it's churches. I tend to think I'm going to get sick of seeing them, but sometimes, something like the Basilica di San Marco (below) pops up and I realize I could look at these things for days. San Marco was a welcomed change from all of the other Gothic-y and Medieval cathedrals I've seen. Quite frankly, San Marco is bizarre. It's exotic. I guess that's why I kind of liked it. It's modeled after Constantinople's Church of the Twelve Apostles, and the ceilings all alongside the interior are all done in the most precise and jaw-dropping mosaic. We paid a couple of Euros to see the Pala d'Oro, pretty much the most invaluable golden altar panel (of Byzantine craftsmanship) on the face of the earth. It was surreal.

After seeing all of the common touristy stuff in San Marco and all that jazz, we headed to one of the outskirts of the Venetian islands and found the Madonna d'Oro, a hidden jewel of a church just outside the Jewish ghetto. Reading a book on building cathedrals certainly helped my appreciation for the buildings, to say the least. Unfortunately for the Madonna, it's in the same town as Basilica San Marco. Tough break.

Speaking of the Jewish ghetto (below):

Some of the tallest houses were built in the Jewish ghetto, as the Jews were not aloud to expand outside of their neighborhood, they had nowhere to go but up.

While the weather was still favorable to us, I got this picture facing east along the Ponte Rialto:

And within a moment's notice, the rain came down, and it came down hard. But, the west of Ponte Rialto was just as good looking as the east, and this time its foreground is beset with just a pair of Americans in Venice:

Within all of the church-seeing (okay, two churches), we still managed to make our way to some museums, naturally. We went to the Galleria dell'Accademia which had quite the impressive European art collection that I would say was wonderful, except I was fresh from the Uffizi so it was less than remarkable for me. To be honest, I just wanted to see Da Vinci's The Vitruvian Man but found out (after walking around forever) that it is not on display and it won't be any time soon. Hate. After that we made our way to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, which is an array of modern art that has been assembled in Ms. Guggenheim's former Venetian residence. I walked away thinking that Jackson Pollock must have taken some serious drugs in his day, and I actually had a nightmare involving one of Salvador Dali's paintings (something about Liquid Desire). I'm just not cut out for modern art, I concluded.

I'm not going to lie, I arrived in Venice with a heavy burden of expectations and I'd say none of it was disappointed. It is extraordinarily beautiful; all the major landmarks and sites were all that they were cracked up to be. Leaving Venice was a different story, one I will share as the intro to the Milan update which will be forthcoming soon (I'm almost caught up to my present location!).