Friday September 27 – this was a BIG day.
Piazza San Marco
We were really fortunate to find our accommodation in Venice itself, as it’s basically choose either massively expensive five star hotels, or well quite um rudimentary. The benefit of staying on the island is it meant we were able get out before the mass of humanity arrives. Venice for a short period before around 10am feels a bit like a normal place, people doing their usual routine, old ladies nattering, parents dragging their children to school, that sort of thing.
We made the most of this brief window and headed to Piazza San Marco.
Scuola Vecchia Della Misericordia / Old School of Mercy
By the time we left St Mark’s it was getting pretty hectic, so when we next ventured out, we decided to go through some of the back streets/canals. We stumbled across the Scuola, which had been a charity building and now an art gallery that was showing work that was part of the Venice Art Biennale.
Rialto Bridge
After leaving the exhibition we headed back to the Rialto Bridge.
Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore
From the Rialto Bridge we headed back to St Mark’s Square to catch the ferry to the Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore to see Chiesa di San Giorgio Maggiore. It is a renaissance church and was built in 1610 and was designed by the architect Andrea Palladio, who is kinda a big deal for architects.
Olivetti
Okay I totally geeked out here. I wasn’t quite all teenage girl screaming at some pop star, but I was pretty close. Apologies for the grossly gendered stereotype by the way. Carlo Scapa is one of those architects’ architect. Olivetti were a high end typewriter company based out of Venice. They hired Scarpa to design the showroom. It was ridiculously well detailed.
Fondazione Querini Stampala
After spending ten euros each to walk around frankly a rather small typewriter salesroom. Marnie initially decided to skip the Foundation and chill in the square outside, which was understandable. The Querini Stampala had been an old palazzo, which was renovated by Carlo Scarpa in the early 1960s. It really is amazing and it also had a cafe, which convinced Marnie that it was well worth a visit.
Saint Mark’s Basilica
Do you like gold? This was one of the maddest and most magnificent churches we saw on our trip. Unfortunately the tragic part is the damage by past flooding is causing the marble to flake away and it also causes mosaics to delaminate.
Gondola
We had been vacillating on the merits or otherwise of going on a gondola. They are a hugely expensive mode of transport, especially when you consider it in the New Zealand Peso. Conversely how often are you going to be Venice? And let’s face it’s part of the romance of the place. It’s a bit like going to the West Coast without the sandflies, it’s just not quite the same without them. *I might have also had an ulterior motive as well, but I will discuss this a bit later.
Ca’ d’Oro
We saw the Ca’ d’Oro while on the Grand Canal, I didn’t think we’d have to time to see it. Again another famous building.
Engagement
I asked Marnie if she would marry me that evening in a quiet square beside a canal in Venice.
This was perfect. Prior to this we headed to the restaurant we had been to the night before beside the canal. Unfortunately they couldn’t take us until later. Marnie had mentioned that she’d like to go back to see the Hotel we had seen when we had arrived. This was perfect as it quiet, we were virtually the only people around.
It was a great day!
* I had thought about asking on the gondola, but it turns out that they’re not super stable, and I also have a tremendous life skill of dropping things, so it just seemed like a less than ideal combination. Plus the square turned out to be way better.
Walked 16.1km / 23583 steps.
MM4.Travel 
Leave a comment