I supplemented the "roll" with a yogurt-flavored gelato (close enough, right?) and headed off to Touristville, aka Piazza San Marco. First stop: the Doge's Palace. The Doge is basically Mr. King Aristocrat, though he doesn't have much power by himself, and he was elected for life. Nobody else in Venice is allowed to call their abode a palace, so all the other waterfront mansions are just called Ca' (house). The palace is both the Doge's living quarters and statehouse, so it's truly immense. I didn't grasp the size of it until I had been inside for a couple of hours. You can't really see how big it is from the outside, since it's overlapped by the Basilica di San Marco, and the whole piazza is so vast it downplays all the surrounding buildings. The Doge had it all: incredible art, gilt everything, senators, statesmen, giant halls, and secret passages. Most of the paintings are basically about how great Venice is, how just and fair her government is, how the Doge is the best guy ever, and how both Jesus and all the old Roman gods are definitely big fans of all of the above. I enjoyed the vast Grand Council hall, with space for 2600 people, enough for all the nobility to come in and vote. The frieze (see, I'm sort of learning archtitectual terms) is paintings of seventy or more ex-Doges, placed up there one by one as they died. One of them was traitorous and has been blacked out in punishment, a bad egg. In the same room is the biggest oil painting ever, Paradise, by Tintoretto. It's absolutely massive, and as usual, about Jesus and company (500 saints), with a holy light shining down to the Doge's seat.
The courtrooms, if I may call them that, were also impressive, this time for the mood they instill. Even as a tourist, I immediately felt small and oddly guilty as I stepped inside. The judges are a team of the nobles, plus, naturally, the Doge and his cohort, and you don't even get a chair during your trial. It feels like you don't get a say, either, though the paintings of Justice and Honor imply that all evidence will be examined. Government propaganda? You decide. Or they will, really. Off you go afterward, across the Bridge of Sighs and down into the dungeon. The cells look as cramped as I would have expected, and the Doge's new jail, despite plans for more light and comfort, looks no better.
Just in case you escape a sentence, the court has its initials emblazoned on an awful lot of weaponry, so they will still be hanging over your head. The armory was crammed full of swords, maces, suits, clickity guns, and all sorts of fearsome, pointy bits I couldn't name. There was also, inexplicably, a chastity belt and a few other metallic objects that weren't made for hurting someone. I enjoyed the display with a gun taken to pieces so you could see how it worked.
After the Doge's pad, I toured the Basilica di San Marco itself, in all its intricate, Jesus-y splendor. The Basilica was nearly dripping with gold, as though all I had to do was wander through and I would come out shiny. My favorite part was the floor, an impressive mosaic of beautiful bits of stone. The whole floor is in waves, since it is slowly sinking into the mire below Venice, but I think I like it even better because of its extra dimension.
I also saw the art in the Dicosean Museum, which included a reliquary containing an entire human hand, all mummified and grey. Ew. Cool. There was more gold, more church stuff, and some great paintings. Sadly, I was starting to get a bit over-Jesused, so I took a break for a boat ride.
The vaporetti aren't fast or romantic, but these water buses are a great way to get around. I got a 24-hour pass and watched the canal-front buildings slowly sink as we powered up the Grand Canal. I got off at the museum of modern art and enjoyed some marvelous sculptures and paintings (Klee, Klimt, Chagall, Kandinsky, etc.), mostly secular. I also popped into the Oriental Museum while I was there. They kicked me out at closing, so I wandered the Jewish district for a while. This was the first ghetto, I heard, so named because of the copper foundry (geto, in Italian) in the neighborhood they gave the Jews. Venetians sent them all to one island neighborhood in the 1500s, closing the bridges at night except for Jewish doctors. After more gelato, I hopped back on a vaporetto and scouted famous buildings: the Byzantine-inspired oldest building in Venezia, the Casino ("little house"! I get it!) in which Richard Wagner died, the fancy Ca' d'Oro, the Rialto and Accademia Bridges, all the stripey docking poles, and La Salute. This last church's dome is currently surrounded by scaffolding, but it's still gorgeous inside. The plaque says Venetians built it to thank Mary for not letting them die during the plague of 1630. I think. My Italian is terrible. I went all the way out to Lido beach before coming back and wandering town some more. Despite signs everywhere for idiot tourists, I kept getting distracted by alleys and shops and it took me an hour and multiple wrong turns to get back to the Rialto. In truth, I think I am finally getting the hang of navigating Venice. I can make it to the Campo S. Maria Formosa, right by my hostel, from anywhere. It took more than two day to accomplish this, though, and now I'm leaving again.
A few other notes:
- I successfully haggled for the first time in my life, over a few bananas.
- I am getting freckles. I don't think I used to get them. Perhaps the sunscreen does it? I am wearing more if it than usual.
- The police-, mail-, and fire-boats are a kick. There's an honest to goodness traffic light outside the fire station, unlike the rest of the canal system, and the post office has one of the biggest docks anywhere.
- I tried Venetian cuttlefish for dinner. Alarmingly black, but delicious.
- A lot of these houses look empty on the ground floor, then cheerily inhabited above. The water damage must be terrible. I kept thinking about The Italian Job when the speedboats buzzed past.
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