November 21, 2016 - Adventures in Venice

Today our first cruise ended and our second cruise started. While most of our fellow passengers were either disembarking or embarking, we took advantage of the time in Venice to pursue some unconventional Venetian experiences.  Adventure #1 - Rowing Standing Up We took a rowing class with Row Venice, a woman-owned and operated company. The lesson was so much fun. We learned how to row a batele. It is similar to a gondola but more stable. The instructor stood in the back on the top of the boat and steered. One of us stood in the front, inside the boat, and rowed. It was fairly easy to do and my muscles did not become fatigued. 

Some other rowers passed us

Each boat has two or more forcula. This is a piece of hand-carved word that looks more like a sculpture than a art of the boat. They are very expensive and are removed when the boat is not in use.

The forcula in the front

The forcula in the back is more complicated

We rowed around Venice for over an hour and got a nice sightseeing tour of the less busy canals. Nellzica was a good teacher and an amazing oarswoman.

Venice as seen from the canals:

Adventure #2 - Opera in the Palace In the evening we went to a site near St. Mark's for an evening of opera by Musica a Palazzo. It was La Traviata tonight. This was an opportunity to experience opera in an intimate and unique venue - an old palace. We moved to a different room for each act - a living room, a study, and a bedroom. Some of the seats were no more than an arm's length away from the performers. There was a very good 4-piece chamber orchestra. The soprano and the tenor were outstanding. Their voices were bright and clear and none of the words got swallowed. Most of the opera was staged using candlelight, or primarily candlelight.

Act 1 took place in this room

Act 2 was here

Act 3: the bedroom

On the way home the soprano got onto our vaporetto. One of many commuters going home from work. Adventure #3 - Getting There Getting somewhere in Venice is always an adventure. If you like orienteering, you'll love Venice.   You cannot get anywhere in Venice quickly. You cannot get anywhere cheaply unless you are prepared to walk and you are good at map-reading. Venice is fairly small, but we needed over an hour to get anywhere each time we left the ship. From the cruise terminal you can walk to something called "The People Mover" in 10 to 15 minutes. That is its name; it is not a translation from Italian. The People Mover costs 1.50 Euros per ride. It is an elevated tramway and it only goes to one place, Piazzale Roma, and the ride lasts about 60 seconds. It is totally automated, from ticket sales to operation of the cars. This makes it rather creepy in the evening when few people are around. We figured out that you CAN walk from the cruise terminal to Piazzale Roma, but it is not the nicest or most comfortable place to walk, though it isn't terrible and probably doesn't take any longer than The People Mover including the waiting time. From Piazzale Roma you can either walk or take a vaporetto. You really can't take a taxi, so you can't be in a hurry. There is a water taxi, but it is super expensive ($80 and up). If you walk, you have to plan your route very carefully. Venice is made up of about 118 islands. You have to make sure you include bridges in your walking route. You have to pay close attention because the "streets" are not always well-marked. Maps don't seem to be all that accurate. I carried three or four different maps at any time and referred to them frequently, like a good orienteer. One map was good for riding the vaporetto, but bad for walking. One had a lot of detail but was very hard to read. One was easy to read because it left out a lot of detail. One showed the landmarks. The other option is the vaporetto. The vaporetto is like a floating bus. It is 8 Euros per trip. Most tourists would not put up with that for a land bus, but this is Venice and you pay it. Each vaporetto stop consists of one to four pontoons, which are like the bus stops, but they actually float on the water. You have to figure out which pontoon to wait on and which vaporetto to board, since there are several lines. We didn't always figure this out correctly, but we bumbled along and always got where we were going on time. There is another waterbus service called Alilaguna. It's ideal because they have a stop right at the cruise terminal so you can skip the People Mover, but: it only runs once an hour, it stops Fairly early in the evening, and it doesn't go to very many places (and this information was not easy to come by). Once you learn the system it is time to leave Venice. But there is nothing like riding through the canals and just experiencing Venice, especially at night.