Sunday, February 20, 2011

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

It’s early Saturday morning, just after 6am to be exact, as I sit here at the Marco Polo Aeroporto in Venice, Italy, waiting for our plane to begin boarding. Good news is it is at least at the gate. Mark says it’s a puddle-jumper. I don’t really care…it’s too early in the morning. If you know me, you know that rising before 7am is not my idea of a great start to the day. But up at 3:30ish, to get showered, call the kids, and out to the bus by 4:52am so we could check in and do the whole luggage, security, etc stuff was obviously a necessity. This flight was not my choice, I can tell you that much. But at least the bus was cool…I’ve never seen a bus that flexes in the middle so it can make turns. We nicknamed it the bendy bus. :)

Our last day in Venice was nice. The sun finally decided to make it’s appearance in Venice, which made for a very pleasant day. We checked out, stored our luggage there, and headed to the Accadamia first for more art. There were supposedly no photos allowed in here, but it was not posted and tons of people were taking pictures in front of the attendants without being admonished. Mark took a few pictures, however we didn’t get them loaded into the computer last night. Again, it seemed more of the same few scenes painted in slightly different ways by a number of artists. I loved seeing the frescos, as they are an extremely difficult medium to master. As we were walking through, Mark asked if I would have come to Italy back in high school (at the peak of my artistic expression) if I would have followed that route more. I’d like to think that it would have definitely inspired me more, maybe would have kept me in the graphics design program longer. But when you are single and parenting, paints and canvases are not high on the list of things to buy.

After leaving the Accadamia, we headed for yet another art museum…the Peggy Guggenheim. It was slightly expensive, in comparison to the other places we have seen, at 12 euros a piece. But the art at this place is definitely different than anything in the other museums. It was like hitting a time warp and being transported from the 1500s to 1900s. Most of the painting and sculptures in the Guggenheim were Cubism and Surrealism…not much in common with the Sistine Chapel. :) It was nice to see something fresh. We came to a spot that had two paintings, and I had to laugh. One was of a red rectangle, with a darker red and orange rectangles around it. The other was orange of two different colors with bluish purple squares inside. I told Mark if I could have shown this to my dad, and told him that this was considered art (worth lots of money) he may have been slightly more supportive of my career choice in high school.

Leaving the museum, we headed toward our very last destination…the Rialto Bridge, for a little shopping, some photos, and a couple kisses. :) I was told I couldn’t shop inside the bridge, because it was too expensive…aw, shucks. But a couple free kisses, that I think I can handle.

It didn’t take us long to get back to the hotel to grab our bags and find out where in the world we needed to go in order to get to our next hotel on the mainland. By our very last day, Mark was pretty good at getting us around…I gave up caring. I took Rick Steves’ advice and just accepted that I was going to be lost most of the time. We hiked our way back through the maze of alleys and bridges to the buses in order to get to the mainland, and our Friday night hotel in Campalto. That was a trip! I’m just going to say we got off slightly too early, had to trek with backpacks and suitcases another kilometer, and then attempt to figure out where in the world the Feel Inn was. We were passing by a building when I happened to look up and see the name, and told Mark three times to look up. Yeah, we found the hotel…sort of. We next had to find the main door, which was not easy. And then panic set in when the door was locked tight and it was dark inside. Good news, after about 10 minutes (and Mark asking some old guy outside the bar) we rang the doorbell and were let in by the receptionist.

The rooms were upstairs, along with the receptionist. We were given three keys – one for the room itself, one for the door in the hallway, and one for the outside door that was locked. That was definitely odd. Our bed and the rooms continued to get progressively smaller, but the bathroom this time was the biggest. We got settled, relaxed for a little bit, then decided to head out for the bus tickets for the next morning and a grab some supper. Ha…people in Campalto speak less English than anywhere else we were. We barely understood the guy in the tabachi shop getting the bus tickets, and the guy at the restaurant didn’t speak a lick of English…and he wasn’t serving us for an hour and a half. So we headed back to the hotel room, sulking and hungry, and stopped at the little pizza shop at the corner. I love pan pizzas…but this was hands down the best pizza I have ever had. Brick oven, thin/traditional curst, pepperoni and mushroom, fresh mozzarella cheese. I had just finished my first piece, and Mark was eating his fourth piece. I had to take the rest of the pizza so I could get more.

With a full day of flying ahead, we are looking forward to seeing the kids again…and getting to sleep in our own bed. It’s been a great week, with lots of memories. I can’t wait to bring the kids here some day. Next time though, I’m definitely learning a bit more Italian before I come.

Ciao!

No comments:

Post a Comment