Arrivederci Venice, Buon Giorno Florence

Venice to Florence – It’s Liam’s 10^th birthday!

St Mark's Square in the rain

When you sleep in a room that was inhabited by nuns in the 10^th century (and has been in continuous use ever since) there are a few ghost bound to be lurking about. As much as I enjoyed every minute of our stay I had some bizarre dreams; some of which involved me being a nun. Hmmmm.

Liam's still on the Lion Hunt

The day has dawned dark with heavy rain. It’s a good thing that we got our Lion Hunt out of the way yesterday. Now that we are familiar with the city we can explore it in our own fashion. With the America’s Cup finished and the horrible weather upon us it feels like a completely different city. Coming out onto St Marks Square, on our way to the Arsenal, there are a few groups of tourists rushing about under their umbrellas, but no sight of the crowds of yesterday. Ah, Venice; a city with mercurial moods.

Liam has wanted to see the Arsenal ever since he heard about it yesterday from our guide Erika. The Arsenal was Venice’s massive ship building works and it was at the heart of Venice’s success as a merchant navy. Long, long before the industrial age Venice had employed the ideas of the assembly line and standardised parts to create an amazing factory site that employed over 16,000 people. It created both the merchant ships and the navy that created and supported the most serene republic of Venice, and all her vast trading routes. Starting around 1100 AD, it hit it’s peak with Venice in the 13^th and 14^th century when the Arsenal could manufacture a ship a day, and innovating the latest seafaring technology to sustain the might it had over seas. Pretty impressive. Today it is no longer a ship building facility, but home to the Italian navy.

Outside the Porta Magna of the Arsenale

After a few wrong turns we find our way to the Arsenal’s main gate, the Porta Magna, flanked by some impressive Lions. No open book for the beautiful Venetian Lion that stands proudly on top of this gate. No, his book is closed; the ships built here were not for PAX, but for war!

Walking the rainy streets, with the Arsenale wall to our right.

Liam desperately wants to see inside and even gets the courage to go and ask the military guard. But no, it is a military base and no civilians are allowed in. Too bad, it’s a unique insight into the history of Venice. But the walk in the rain is stimulating and the kids enjoy jumping in every puddle they see.

Soon our feet are sore – we’ve tracked quite a few kilometres over the past month – and so we decide to hop on the waterbus and see where it takes us. I want to go to Murano, the island that is so famous for it’s glass works. But alas, I get us onto a waterbus that goes in the wrong direction. Ooops.

St Mark's square from the water

Instead we decide to sit down and take in the views of the city from the water. Which is the medium that Venice is built to impress form. So many churches and palaces! What must the ancient traders - coming from their walled medieval strong holds - have thought of the delicate and ornate opulence of renaissance Venice?

you never know what treasure you will find around the next corner

Without great beauty in their landscape, the Venetians shaped beauty from their own creativity. When you bop along the choppy waters and look around at the man made grandiosity there is a feeling of specialness that over comes you. Mostly I feel humbled by grand vistas from mountaintops or waterfalls or sunsets, but here these innovative people were able to engineer the same feeling; so hats off to them, the Venetians, proud by culture, mind and deeds.

After the water taxi takes us the length of the city we meander back through the town, heading in the general direction of our hotel, but not caring if we take a circular route. The charm of Venice is in getting lost and seeing the random sights along the way. A black cat sitting atop an ancient wall, an old lady closing her shutters against the rain. And of course finding off the beaten track places to try the pizza.

Far too soon it’s time to get our backpacks from the hotel and make our way to the train station. We are all a little sad to be leaving so soon. Randall and I both think this is a city that needs a full two to three days to be in, to be able to fully soak in the culture.

“I am going to live here someday, says Clara!” Of course she’s said that about most of the towns we’ve visited in Italy so far. But then, I wouldn’t put it past her.

the courtyard of our 10th century b&b

We make it to the train station in plenty of time, only to discover that our Eurail passes have been stolen from my backpack. Damn it! A whole lot of shuffling around occurs before we finally just buy tickets and barely make the train. Unfortunately the tickets we get spread the six of us out over four different train cars, not exactly ideal when there are only two adults. Luckily we meet a super nice Mormon family from Utah who take us in and share their seats with us. And over the next few hours between Venice and Florence we chat away like old friends. It’s my favourite thing about travel: meeting strangers and discovering the commonalities that we all share. By the time the train slowly stops I have relaxed somewhat and we are excited about our next destination – Florence.

The birthday boy with his Venetian Lion tie

Off the train we take two cabs to our next hotel, part of an old palace that is just a short walk out of the main touristy part of town. We arrive and discover that we have to walk up 90 stairs to the hotel, and once checked in at the main lounge, we have to walk about 40 stairs down the internal stairwell of the hotel to get to our room. Um, OK. I guess we’ll be fit after our three nights in Florence. At least there is a luggage lift for the first part, and some strong bellboys who manage to get our bags to our room. Crickey Dickens, mate, it was some feat!

It’s a bit later than we had planned, but we are all dressed up in our finest clothes and Randall takes us all out to a fancy dinner to celebrate Liam’s real birthday. He chooses a restaurant that is right on the Arno River, looking across at the old town. The food is superb, the kids in awe of the fancy restaurant and we can all relax that the hassle of European train travel is over, for a few days at least. And we can all discuss the fun of exploring a new city and the culture that comes along with it.

After dinner we treat Liam with as much gelato as he can eat. He orders the most massive cone ever constructed and begins chowing down; completely oblivious to the fact that we are standing on the edge of the Ponte Vecchio, the most famous bridge in Florence, or indeed anything other than the massive cone of sugar and cream in front of him. Some Japanese tourists ask him to pose for them so they can record this monument to Florentine gelato, not sure if they could see his face over the cone but they were very pleased with their photographic find.

Liam's massive gelato!

Amazingly he finishes the whole thing and walks up the 90 stairs with one heck of a bellyache. It’s midnight and we are knackered; straight to be for all of us. It is hard to believe that just this morning we were riding on the canals of Venice and now we are landlocked in the heart of Renaissance Italy – Florence.