Thursday 16/2/2016.
We set off for the Palazza Ducale (Doge’s Palace) determined that one day of our trip was going to go as planned. We would visit the dungeons if it killed us. Visiting Venice and not visiting its famous prison is surely a crime against tourism. Each time we to go to Piazza San Marco, we end up finding a new route there. We’re certainly seeing a lot of Venice! The guard at the palace remembered us from yesterday. Security risks are hard to forget.
We bought a museum pass so we can do 11 museums. The Doge’s Palace is stunning. The armory is very impressive and puts our weapons collection to shame. Each time we saw the sign for the prisons, we got excited. They were the main reason we wanted to visit the Doge’s Palace, and they were saving the best ‘til last. Crossing the Bridge of Sighs to the New Prison was very cool. Our anticipation was definitely different to the prisoners who took this route in the past. Nobody else on the tour seemed as excited as we were. We ended up going the wrong way around the area near the courtyard and got completely lost. So unlike us.
Touch of Glass
We had lunch sitting by the Grand Canal then educated ourselves on how to use the vaporetto. Our education was clearly lacking, but us and public transport have a shady past. There was a vaporetto from Fondamente Nove near our apartment to Murano. We also got off at the wrong stop (Paris all over again) – we were supposed to get off at the museum stop, but it meant we got to see more of Murano, so we couldn’t complain.
We bought ourselves Murano glass pens with ink and a glass stand. They write beautifully and are officially the prettiest pens we own. And we own a LOT of pens. We could open our own museum. We got lost trying to find the museum and had to ask for directions. The woman we asked didn’t speak English and our Italian was still bad, so she directed with hand signals, which we followed easily. The museum pieces were incredible. There were some really intricate pieces, such as ants, flowers and even glass barbed wire! We were so worried that we were going to break something if we breathed too hard. We bought our family different Murano pieces from one of the shops on the island by greeting the shop owner and leading her around the store, pointing to the ones we wanted. There was way we were picking them up ourselves.
And All That Jazz
We caught the vaporetto to Fondamente Nove, convinced the boat was going to sink under the amount of people on board. It was Venice’s version of public transport at rush hour. We returned to the apartment, uploaded our photos then went out to get chips. We spent some time in the apartment, immersing ourselves in culture by watching a French film dubbed into Italian and making up dialogue for the characters. Our improv was probably funnier.
As it was Lesley’s last night, we went out for drinks. We tried to find the bar we went to on our first night, but after failing to find it, we ended up in a jazz bar. There were bras hanging from the ceiling. We find the classiest places. When we returned to the apartment, Lynx realised she’d left her gloves in the bar, so we had to go back. Luckily, we found them.
One thing we’ve noticed about Venice – the dogs don’t care. There are a lot of them in Venice and not one of them looks our way, even when we greet them in Italian. It’s crushing.
Read Day 2.
Read Day 4.