First Day in Venice July 10, 2009

Venice - July 10, 2009

Venice airport is hustling and bustling, even though we arrive 2 hours early and no one is present to greet us at the Viator counter. Finally an exasperated coordinator shows up, tell us we are early (as if we had flapped our wings too hard) and tells us to wait by the side. The line in at the ATVO booth next to ours is growing, and we figure out its the line for the bus system to Venice. However, we already had vouchers booked on line from Viator for a water-taxi service.

We drag the luggage into the bright sunshine of Venice to the docks, where three sailor-shirted Venetians argue about who would take on the burden of taking us across the lagoon.

The trip takes about 20 minutes. We meet 2 French-Canadians aboard, who as it turns out are taking the same cruise as us, and three Polish-Americans, who sit in the back and have the pleasure of being soaked by the sea-spray of our boat. As we weave through the depth markers of the lagoon, we catch our first glimpse of old Venice herself.

We are dropped off at the docks right outside of San Marco square, the main and only Piazza in Venice. The phalanx of tourists appear instantaneously. We offload our luggage and drag it to San Marco.

The view is glorious. The square, more of a rectangle really, is more than 1,000 years old, and is flanked by the Palazzo Ducale, Basilica Di San Marco, Campanile clock tower and Museo Correr. As we cut across the square to our hotel, into one of the hidden alleys that pass for streets, we see a crew is filming two actors. Huge lines are snaking into the Basilica as tour guides pump their placards up and down. For all the confusion, the pigeons are quite well behaved. The winged lion, symbol of Venice, is everywhere. Glass souvenir shops line the first floors and their proprietors smoke outside. The table clothed tables of the cafes are filled with people.

We walk less than a minute from San Marco's Square, across a small bridge, to the hotel, Royal San Marco (http://www.sanmarcohotels.com/). The room is not ready yet so off to our first Italian meal, pizza naturally !, eaten standing up at "Happy Pizza", familiarizing ourselves with what euros look like and listening to the proprietor talk about being grateful for all of the tourists.

After a short change in our hotel room, we are off to the Viator Venice Walking tour. Our prearranged meeting point is the most confusing part of the tour, outside a tiny tourist office, overshadowed by Louis Vuitton shops and the Museo Correr. Our tour guide asks the group where everyone is from. I scream out "Miami", and a lady next to us tells me she's from Boca Raton. We shall see her and her companions later on the gondola.

Our tour stops at the La Fenice theater, which has burned down numerous times and where several Verdi operas, including La Traviata, premiered. We look across to the balconies, where courtiers bleached their hair in the sun, to a particular color now named Venetian Red. The tour guide explains the numbering system for the houses, a gift of the Austrian occupation, now largely useless. We visit the Scala Contarini del Bovolo with its external snail staircase, languishing for lack of restoration funds. She tells us about the gondolier's life and the $60,000 cost of a gondola.

We board a Viator gondola ride, with the family from Boca, and the gondolier points out how high the water reaches during high-tide and at its highest point. Some boats get stuck under the smaller bridges, and gondola traffic jams occur, but the ride inside the side canals is mostly quiet, surrounded by echos of nothing, not even the oar's push.

After the tour, we happily fight the crowds through the streets of Venice. At the Pescaria/Rialto markets in San Polo, we mock the octopus and squid and find my beloved red currants.

We are off to San Marco square for a huge gelatto (Coppa Dei Mori) and bill (E21.50) with a Supplementa Musica at the Caffe' Lavena, although no refund is provided when the quartet takes a break from playing. We almost get a tablecloth charge for messy eating of the chocolate.

As night falls, the Africans bring out their refrigerator-sized cardboard boxes filled with fake Prada and Gucci and set them up on the sidewalks. Shayna looks for an out of the way Romantic spot for dinner, and we manage to find one in "Da Marro" Alla Fava, in a side alley. Dinner consists of salate caprese, calamari salad on a bed of polenta, pasta with Pecorino for Shayna, and Ravioli with Sea bass for Richard, and a chocolate souffle.