This is the end of my post from our weekend in Venezia, even though I took a lot more pix. I took a few video tos, like of the bells of St Mark's, which are rung by two bronze men who hit it with hammers, and another of a bell tower with the bells pealing. Unfortunately, this blog does not seem to allow videos.
On Saturday we went back to Venice from Treviso, where we stayed at the Hotel Continental, which is very close to the train station. There were other tourists there (at the hotel, which was 85 per night with a nice breakfast), including a guy about my age who seemed lonely and talked with us at breakfast. He lives in Chicago and edits one of the healthcare magazines I used to read. He is touring Italy by himself for a couple of weeks. After we got off the train at Venice we went to another station, which is like the bus, but they are boats. We bought a 20 euro all day pass, so we could go anywhere we wanted.
But first back near St. Marks, which is near the boat docks. This is the famous bridge of sighs. The courthouse is on he left and the prison on the right and the prisoners would sigh as they were marched across the bridge to their cells. How romantic is that!
This is Anziano Seven Clark, from California. He and his wife, in the back, are living at Treviso and were our hosts for the weekend. Each senior couple hosts one of these weekends, which we have every two or three months (we did it last month when the seniors came to see Elder Christofferson). He was so impressed by the gondaleers straw hats with red ribbons, so he bought one. (remember, I bough an apron, on which it was written, Giovanni, il mago della cucina, or John, the wizard of the kitchen.)
Taken from the boat on our way to the island of Murano, which was about a 20 minute boat ride with lots of other tourists. A couple of guys from Denmark saw my name tag and asked what we believe in. They said in Denmark they go to the Lutheran church 3 times in their lives, to be baptized, married and buried, otherwise, they just believe in themselves, but they are anxious about the Muslims invading Denmark. I am glad we wore our name tags, lots of people looked and a few asked questions, which I guess is why we have them. I wore dress shoes, which were not very good for walking 10 miles in, but I survived.
Murano is where they make a sell lace. They have done it for centuries. It can be hand made or machine made, and hand made costs about 20 times what hand made costs.
Lady making lace items by hand to sell to the tourists. She said I could take the pix, but most would not let me,
Lace altar cloth in one of the two large churches they have on this small island.
Of course, the churches have pipe organs. This one is were a famous Italian organist, from the 1700s lived and played this instrument, which I suppose still plays because I did not see an electronic and the bulletin showed that the organ was part of the mass.
Actually, the guy in the bottom left of the painting is the famous organist, perhaps he paid for this painting. It was common for wealthy people to pay for paintings, and have themselves painted in.
Our senior group at lunch, which was in a pleasant restaurant run by a family. They were very friendly and the food was excellent and not any more expensive than elsewhere we have eaten. Again, pasta, pizza and salads are the norm, and since they are carbs, I am gaining weight.
Some of the homes in this village are painted colorfully, which reminded me of Mexico, also they call the streets calle here too. There are no vehicles in this village, the policemen ride bikes.
My lasagna lunch. It was made with home made egg noodles. Italians like to use very large plates and presentation is important to them. It had dried green something sprinkled on it, and the decoration on the left side of the plate was cute, but had no taste.
Spaghetti with seafood. Italians eat a lot of seafood, but we haven't eaten much of it, although their tuna is good.
I wanted to eat outside, but the others wanted an inside table so we could talk. Outside, with the tourists and music, it was always noisy, and the tables are just for two or perhaps 3 or 4, but not 12.
About every third store, including in Venice, sells gelato. See the cone on the right. They do use cones and people eat on the street, but I like cups because they aren't so drippy on my white shirt. We had our fair share of gelato, both on this island and in Venice, as well as Treviso.
This island was not available to land on and apparently had no tourists. This looks like a monastery or abbey.
This island had a hospital on it for people with contagious diseases. I guess they were all cured, or died.
This is the island of Burano, which is much like Murano, but here they blow glass at many different foundearies and sell it in many stores. We spent the morning at Murano and the afternoon at Burano, they look very similar and neither have vehicles.
They are very strict about not letting you take pictures of glass blowing or of things made. This is not a very good example, some of the things they make are breath taking.
There were also many churches on Burano, and in this one there were glass (not crystal) chandliers, obviously made there. A shop window. Next pixs are end of the street and waiting for a boat to take us back to Venice.
Tourists dress weird. This Muslim lady was dressed in white, with a lace umbella she bought and her husband or friend in shorts. I was a warm day, but most of the Italians were wearing coats. I think Myrna is part Italian because she wears her coat a lot.
Whenever I see an electronic organ and a pipe organ, I know the pipe organ needs to be restored, It is a shame it is so expensive to restore them to their former glory. Wild flowers are even growing at the top of bell towers.
This painter from the 1500s got a D in cherub painting.
This is back in Treviso. We saw a basket maker at work on the street.
We ate this guys pizza, he used an oven with a fire, although many are either gas or electric. The ones with fire leave a little black on the bottom of the pizza. Pizzas are all about the same size, about 12 inches, and feed two very well, and cost between 5 to 10 euros each. They have names for the pizzas, depending on what's on it. They even have one called American, which has french fries and sliced hot dogs on it.
This street in Treviso is near a water way, and in the old days carriages drove down the right side, under the portico, but now it is only for walking.
Italians love their cani (dogs) but we haven't seen a mut or one running loose yet. In our neighborhood in Opera there is a park with a fenced in place you can put your dog so it can run around on the grass.
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Taken out the car window on the way home, I don't remember where, but probably between Verona and Brescia. There are grapes (for wine, of course) in the foreground and I have no idea what church this is. There are literally hundreds of thousands of these churches, but this one had a taller bell tower than most. The Italian countryside is just one little town (always with a church) after another. The grape vines are getting their leaves and there are a lot of wild flowers.
Well, it is time for bed (9:45) and I am still tired from the weekend. Since we were gone on Friday, I had double my work to do today. We started at 8 am and finished work at 8, (had lunch here, tuna on baguettes) went up and ate dinner (made chicken soup by sauteing cut up chicken breast in olive oil, adding chicken bullion, frozen veggies for soup--they have excellent mixes, and a kilo was only 1 euro--tossed in a small handful of macaroni and cooked it for about 12 minutes until the macaroni was all dente, and ate it with slices of baguettes I bought this morning when I ran out to get some juice for the muffins made for our office meeting at 9) and then came back down to finish up this blog, while Myrna is working on entering baptisms. She just started being the baptism recorder for the mission today. Another day in the life of an mission office couple.
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