Venice - the most serene republic

Venice

Venetia – the most Serene Republic

Everyone has heard of Venice. The city with streets of water, where cars are boats, and at high tides even the side walks require gum boots. A city of history, trade, the crusades and ancient trade routes; also of renaissance artists, composers and architecture, where scientists could be free of the harsh censure of the medieval church.

Venice is my pick for the trip - one of my favourite cities, a place that I want to experience with the kids and my husband.

There is something so different in

Venice from any other place in

the world, that you leave at

once all accustomed habits and

everyday sights to enter an

enchanted garden.

Mary Shelley

And that is where we are today. Getting ready to enter the enchanted garden, the unreal beauty of time out of place. But first we much pack our bags a day early so that we can escape the ship. Even though we are meant to stay one more night on the MSC Musica and end up back in Bari, we just cannot stay - the service is too poor, the ship unclean and just not comfortable to be on... So off we will get and having booked a hotel using my iphone the night before, (oh how different travel has become these days!), we can look forward to not just a day in this marvellous city, but a night and next day as well.

our guide showing the kids a map of venice

The skies are looking an ominous grey and the forecast is for rain. Luckily the charm of the city is not in its blue skies and perfect beaches, but the history and the accessibility of its art and architecture.

We are scheduled to meet our guide Erika at 11 am at the church of San Zaccaria, right in the heart of Venice. This is another of the tours that we have booked through Context Travel (like the one in the Vatican city), which is tailored for families with young children to bring the city alive. I may know about the history of Venice, but I am not familiar enough with the city itself to teach the kids without loosing their interest. I’m pretty sure that if we go to a museum at this point in our trip the kids faces would glaze over so bad they’d turn into museum statuary. So instead Erika is going to be taking us on a “Lion Hunt” in Venice, something that has supremely caught the kids minds and imaginations for weeks. And of course during our travels through the Mediterranean and up the Adriatic we’ve been constantly reminded of the Venetians and their part in the history of the region.  We’ve spotted many a lion proclaiming who controlled the region along the way….

After a long winding walk through Venice we meet up with Erika, ready to start our hunt, but before we are allowed to learn about the Venetian Lions she sits the kids down on an old well outside the church, pulls out a huge map of Venice and it’s surrounding territory and launches in to the history of early Venice to help the kids understand this extremely unique city.

The Doge's Palace

When Rome was falling and the barbarians were ransacking what is now Italy, the people who lived in the north got tired of being brutalised. So they took to the marshy islands at the top of the Adriatic and started building a community that wouldn’t be plundered. At first they built on the furthest island out, the Lido. But when the times changed and the so-called barbarians got ships they found out that this strategy wasn’t the best. They retreated to the islands that are today known as Venice, nestled in between the outer islands of the Lido and the inner islands that act as a buffer to the mainland. Venice is unique in cities as it has never had a defensive wall. It doesn’t need one. It has the sea and the ever-changing course of the sand islands that are created by the tides of the area. And so a seafaring nation of traders ruled the waves for a thousand years. A proud culture that was the height of western civilisation of its day, and as it’s symbol it adopted the winged lion…

The Lion, as the symbol of Venice, is simply everywhere here in the city. It is usually depicted with wings and it’s paw upon a book, either open or closed, depending on whether Venice was at peace or at war when the statue was carved. Generally in Venice itself the Lions have an open book with the Latin inscription:

“Pax Tibi, Marce, Evangelista meus”

Which means to those of us who doesn’t speak Latin:

“Peace be upon you, O Mark, my Evangelist”.

It is said that the Lion is a metaphorical representation of Mark the Evangelist who is the patron saint of Venice; at least he has been since the 800’s ad when some enterprising Venetian merchants stole his body from Alexandria. He was brought back to Venice to give the city religious prestige to go along with its up and coming business reputation. Not a bad ploy, and even today St. Mark’s body is entombed in St Mark’s basilica, in St Mark’s square – the heart of Venice. And we think marketing is a modern invention. Bwahaha.

Liam learns about roman numerals

All background history lessons checked off the to do list and the kids are armed with a page of photos each. There are lion’s to be found! And we are off. Through the crazy crowds we maze through the winding back streets until we pop out onto waterfront, past the Doge’s palace, the eerie bridge of sighs and ease our way into St Mark’s square. We stop over and over to see if the Lion’s they find are the one’s on their treasure map. And along the way Randall and I are able to pepper the guide with a few of the grown up questions as well.

One thing we didn’t figure into our tour was that not only was it Sunday in Venice, and the Feast of the Ascension but it was also the final day of the America’s Cup so the city was completely filled to the brim with tourists from all over. Wow. As we headed in to St Mark’s square just before noon the crush of bodies was at its height! I think I now know the real reason Venice is “sinking”!

Parade of the Ascension in St Mark's Square

But along with the crowds we also lucked into a rare event. The ancient clock tower in St Mark’s Square had a special show that only happens on the feast of the Ascension. When it strikes noon there is a parade of the three wise men following the angel do a slow walk across the ancient face of the tower. Statues that date back nearly a thousand years - and they get to come out and show off to the world just once a year. The kids were not that impressed, they were more excited by the Lions and the sheer scale and intricacies of the buildings around us, not to mention the novelty of the streets made from water. But for me it was a unique handshake with the past. There go the statues that were carved so long ago, who would have been state of the art technology way back then. And they are carrying containers of Frankincense, just like the ones that we so recently saw in Oman. History seems so far away, but really it’s right here with us, you just have to have eyes that are not dead to the past or the present.

In this crowd there is no time to argue about sandwich choices!

Moving on through the square – oh so slowly through the crowds – we finally convince the kids there is more of Venice to see than just St Marks Square. We pop into a little sandwich shop and pick up some sandwiches to eat along the way. It’s a crush, but with a little food we are all happy again. Lolling on a huge Lion statue we polish off the last of the food and are off again.

We stop to admire a plaque high up on a wall that shows an old lady holding a cooking pot. This, Erika tells us, is to commemorate a rebellion that almost happened. It seems the nobles of a particular family thought that they could be running the government more efficiently than that of the current Doge, so they decided to stage a rebellion and take over the government.

As you do.

So, as they rode down the street, early in the morning, to take over the government and gain control. As they rode past, an old lady looked out the window, figured out what they were doing, and, liking the government that was already in power threw her stone cooking pot out the window and hit the leading horseman on the head. He fell off his horse causing such a commotion that the troops in back, thinking that they had been discovered before they could gain the element of surprise, turned tail and fled. Thus ending any coup that was intended to happen. The old lady was thanked by the government, (the one that stayed in power) by guaranteeing that her rent would not be raised for the rest of her life, and that of her descendants. And they continued to live with the low rent for over two hundred years. Sweet!

That’s one of the things I love about Venice. It may have been ruled by a certain number of patrician families, but the common people certainly were an ever-present force that shaped what those families did with their power.

The servant's entrance of an old Venetian palace

Most of the tourist shops along the way sell carnival masks and they enrapture Liana. The history behind the “doctor’s” masks is so intriguing to me. Everyone has seen the mask with the hideous long nose, something like a huge hooked beak of a bird. The doctors would wear these masks when going into houses of plague patients. Back then they thought the plague came from noxious gasses in the air so they wore these huge beaked masks and filled the nose with herbs and spices to ward off the disease. (Let’s hope it warded off the fleas that actually carried the disease.) The masks they sell these days come in many shapes and sizes (including the doctor mask) and just about every colour. Some are truly artistic creations, with feathers and paint and blown glass.

in front of the Rialto Bridge

By the time we reach the Grand Canal and the Rialto Bridge it is time to say goodbye to our lovely guide. But before she goes she offers to help us find our hotel, given how maze-like Venice can be, we gratefully accept her offer. Once we know where we are going it seems so simple, but I’m sure if we had been trying to find it on our own it would have taken quite some time! After walking down a very narrow (think one and a half people wide) alleyway we pop out onto a very deserted canal and square. We knock on the door of the building that faces the canal and presto, here is our hotel. It was once a nunnery back in the 12^th century and has mainly been a private residence all these years. Now our hosts have restored a few of the rooms and are renting them out. We have two bedrooms with a kitchen and dining room – all with windows and a small balcony that overhang the canal! And original period paintings painted into the plasterwork. What luck, we couldn’t have found a better place for our family if I’d spent a year researching it!

We spend the better part of the afternoon getting our bags from the ship (a drama in itself!) leaving them at the Venice train station and making our way back into the town by water taxi.

Liam's night before his birthday dinner

Today is Liam’s 10^th New Zealand birthday – meaning that if he was in New Zealand at the moment it would be his birthday – so in true only son spoiled fashion we decide to take him out for a “night before his birthday” dinner celebration and eat at an old restaurant that has been around since the 1400’s. The kids have the pizza (imagine that!) and I have the traditional squid and polenta cooked in squid ink. The kids are revolted, but all have to try a bite at the same time. We then comb the streets looking for the perfect gelateria to end the evening, and end up buying some masks as well. The girls pay out some of their own money to buy Liam a statue of a Venetian Lion for his birthday present tomorrow.

Even though it is after nine o’clock it is still quite light, but we herd the kids back through the narrow alley to our hideaway apartment. They are mostly used to sleeping in one room now, but there is always the restless giggling and/or arguing that accompanies the settling down process. But soon all is quiet and Randall and I can enjoy the sounds of the canal outside our window and the occasional gondola passing by.

What a beautiful city. It is certainly beyond expectation to be here with the family. Accessible history, art, architecture, food and an inclusive ambiance, it’s easy to see why Venice is, and has been, such a draw to people from far and wide.