I’m not going to lie…I was a little skeptical about Venice. I had read so much about how crowded it was with tourists, how stinky and dirty the canals were in summer, and how many mosquitos used the canals as a breeding ground. Not to mention all the usual hype. When the hype is bigger than the actual event (think High School prom), it can often be disappointing.

However, none of this was the case when we arrived. Venice is as lovely as everyone says it is. Being totally lost couldn’t be more enjoyable. The crumbling buildings and decaying foundations add charm and character. Every bridge and every corner had something quaint to admire.

Rialto Bridge

Piazza San Marco and the Basilica are breathtaking, really. One of the most beautiful I have seen, inside and out. The huge mosaics found in every nook and cranny, are truly unbelievable. The mosaic in the Nave of the Basilica is over 4,700 square yards alone!

The Basilica holds the remains of Gospel author Saint Mark, who was blown off course during his travels and ended up in the Venice lagoon. An angel came to him and said that he would lay in peace in this town. After Saint Mark died, his holy body laid in Alexandria, Egypt for seven centuries. In 828, two merchants from Venice decided that they were going to re-claim their patron Saint and bring him back to Venice. They hid his remains in a pork barrel in order to smuggle them out of Muslim-occupied Egypt. One of the mosaics inside tells the story of how, during the several decades needed to build the Basilica, the remains of Saint Mark were “misplaced”. Thank goodness someone finally found them in a hollow column in the Basilica, and they were soon placed under the current alter.

My favorite part of the Basilica was the four bronze horses. Copies of the horses are placed outside, where the originals once stood. You can see them in the picture above, amongst the columns over the main entrance. Their age and sordid history made them so interesting to me. Carbon-14 dates the horses at 175 B.C.! Legend says that they were made in the time of Alexander the Great. Nero then took them to Rome. After that, Constantine decided he wanted them in his racecourse in Constantinople. In 1204 some Venetians stole them during the looting of Constantinople and brought them to Basilica di San Marco! This isn’t the end of their story though. When Napoleon conquered Venice in 1797 he decided that the horses should grace the top of a triumphal arch in Paris. When Napoleon’s empire collapsed, they were returned to Venice to stand proudly over the Piazza. When modern man, pollution, and probably a lot of pigeon poop started to erode the horses, they made their way inside the Basilica, where they currently stand in the museum.

We enjoyed some really interesting surprises during our wanderings through Venice. While waiting to enter the Basilica, there was a civic ceremony being held on the Piazza. We were treated to music from a singing, dancing, running, camouflage and feathered-hat wearing brass band!

As we crisscrossed the canals, we couldn’t help but notice all the boats that were docked along the buildings. Ok, it is a city built on a lagoon, so that doesn’t seem too unusual. However, there was no conceivable way to reach some of these boats. No small dock, no door, no dingy.  Then, we found our answer. Just scale the wall, one step at a time.

The funniest part was that we saw this guy on the street not five minutes later. There was no mistaking that bag and those shoes (they matched his shirt…blue suede). Apparently he wasn’t trying to get to his boat after all…just leaving the house for the day!

Another surprise was the Piazza at night. Besides being beautiful, it is flooded. We had read and learned about the “Acqua Alta”, which is the flooding that occurs when tides are at their most extreme (usually November and March). However, I think what we experienced wouldn’t even be considered flooding by the Venetians. Instead, just the normal wetness that comes along with the full moon. So, instead of ruining our shoes, we just kicked them off and waded through!

We headed across the lagoon to the island of La Giudecca for Birthday dinner and a beautiful view of Venice’s sunset skyline.

Finally, we spent our last day in Venice on the island of Murano. Despite the rain, we enjoyed walking the streets, finding respite in the dozens of glass shops, and peeking in on glass blowers hard at work.

Murano in the rain

When my mother turned 30, she was given a surprise party in my grandmother’s backyard. Shortly after the party she took a trip to Italy and visited Venice. Whilst there, she purchased a necklace in Piazza San Marco for my grandmother that reminded her of my grandmother’s birth sign, Gemini.

Before my grandmother died, she gave the necklace back to my mom. My mom has been wearing it for over 30 years, enjoying the memories that it invoked.

When I turned 30, my family threw me a wonderful surprise party on Chincoteague Island. My mother’s gift was the last to be opened. Inside the small box was the necklace and a letter.

A portion of the letter reads: “It seems to be the perfect time for me to re-gift the necklace. I feel I have merely been the necklace’s caretaker, awaiting the appropriate and meaningful hour to pass it to someone as special as her granddaughter, born on her day, now turning the same age as myself when I purchased it for her.”

I never met my grandmother, but I am proud to share a birthday, and the dynamic personality quirks of a Gemini, with her. Each year, on our birthday, I know that my mother is happy to wish me a year full of joy and adventure, but is also missing her own mother and the ability to wish her a wonderful year.

Before we left Chincoteague last year, Joe and I vowed to make it to Venice before my next birthday. We sat on the Piazza at a little table, listened to the music, enjoyed a drink and the beautiful view. Just as my mother had. Each day, I donned the necklace and wore it through the streets of Venice “with aplomb”, just as my mother taught me to.

**Warning/Disclaimer** The following post contains pictures of copies of male appendages sans crotch cloths, and pictures of paintings of non-humans in their birthday suits. If the sight of bare-bottoms, and other associated parts, offends you, you should stop reading now. If you’re feeling a little spicy, than please…join me!

The wonderful part about returning to a place you have already visited is enjoying the details. Details that were lost in the first, frenzied attempt to see-all-do-all. I visited Florence nearly eight years ago with my mother, but was excited to explore it again with Joe and get an insider’s perspective from our friends who currently live there.

Hopefully this isn’t foreshadowing, but I found the details of “Hell” to be quite curious. Used to educate an illiterate public, the domed ceiling of Florence’s Duomo contains frescos depicting all the possibilities for post-life. Angels and Heaven at the highest point, closest to God, and “Capital Sins and Hell” at the bottom.

The Plexiglas, preventing us from falling several stories to the cathedral floor, was a hindrance when trying to enjoy the details of the art, but proved to be an excellent method of simultaneously capturing the beauty of the ceiling and the stained glass windows.

So, let’s get on with Hell already!

I’m sure that Hell has to have the obligatory skeleton with scythe, acting as Death himself. However, what is more concerning is the man/woman with five breasts in the lower left hand corner. I could definitely see how having five boobs would be considered punishment.

As a consequence for slightly undesirable behavior, one might fear being bludgeoned by an angry frog-man.

What would be the punishment for someone who kicked their dog? Or maybe their wife? Or what if they just had ugly feet? Well…obviously his/her leg would be cut off at the thigh by a human bat with rabbit ears, horns, and a tail where something else should be. What about the man in the lower left corner? Is he being skinned? Is this poor sap a victim of gluttony, being punished by exposing last night’s dinner? Maybe he is an original resident, waiting to receive his next assignment from the Devil himself.

Speaking of the Devil…those with ultra-deplorable behavior just went right down the hatch.  (I took a few liberties on the computer with this one. It just didn’t exude “being eaten by the Devil” when in its original format.)

If all of the aforementioned didn’t persuade someone to change their earthly behaviors, there is still one doozy left! Personally, I consider this to be much more miserable than being eaten by the Devil. What does someone have to do to get stuck in the a@$ with a flaming torture rod? The woman in the lower right corner has to cover her eyes because it is so terrible. Yeah, look away lady. I hope you aren’t next!

Whew! Now that our journey to Hell and back is complete, we can move on to other topics. Another thing that my mom and I didn’t get to do while in Florence was see Michelangelo’s David…the real one. There are plenty of copies all over Florence, and Italy for that matter, of David. However, there is only one “real” David.

Is this the real David? Nope. Just another copy, often outshined by the nearby statue of Poseidon, but perfectly positioned for great photos!

Is this the real David? Nope. Just another copy, who must have spent some time in a tanning booth.

Now, you never know who is connected to whom in Italy. In order to protect my family, friends, and anyone I have ever come in contact with, I am not going to say that neither Joe nor I took an illegal picture of the real David. That would be against the rules, and totally wrong. So, in order to avoid taking an illegal picture of the piece of marble that Michelangelo himself worked on from 1501-1504, one should probably not pretend that he/she is listening to an audio guide on his/her iPhone and snap a quick photo.

The real David

What I found really interesting about Michelangelo was that he didn’t consider himself to be a sculptor, and definitely not an artistic genius. He believed that each piece of marble, stone, or plaster already contained a work of art, placed there by God. He was only uncovering it, revealing it to the world. When moved by the spirit, he would work without pause, for days and nights on end. He believed he was simply doing God’s work.

Thank you to our wonderful Florentine hosts, the Flammias, for a great kick-off to our Italian adventures!

CARRIE – Grazie per avere fatto questo belle foto. Non vedo l’ora cuando possiamo continuare le nostre avventure. Bacci!