Friday, March 22, 2024
This morning we had a delicious morning breakfast and then hopped in cars a drove the 45 minutes or so to Venice.
I’ve been here once before -- on an extra long layover on my way to Barcelona in 2019. On that occasion, I had about 90 minutes in the city. It was just enough time to walk from the bus station to Pizza di San Marco, and walk back. While making sure I got a pizza and a gelato and sat on the edge of the canal eating them.
Today I felt so happy, but mostly happy for Betty. Once long ago she told me that her grandmother, one of the saintliest women to ever live, had always dreamed of visiting Venice. Abuelita has now passed away, and I promised Betty that someday I would take her to Venice in memory of her grandmother.
Today we made that a reality.
First off we took a water taxi from the parking garage to Saint Mark’s. After visiting the remains of Matthias in Germany, we were really excited to go into this church as well.
The experiences could not have been more different. Trier was quiet. The church was nearly empty. We could hear every whisper, and I kept telling the kids to be quiet because we could hear every footfall.
In Venice, the church was packed with tourists. We had to wait in a long line to get in. Then we had to pay. And inside the church we just shuffled through the line with the other tourists. They wouldn’t even allow us to see the relic. The church is beautiful, and so different from other churches I’ve been in with its good mosaics and Byzantine architecture, but it ultimately felt a bit hollow.
It made me think about how that feeling of holiness depends so much on reverence and stillness. I imagine at some point St Mark’s felt like that. But not anymore. And it wasn’t just that church. The city is full of them, but they all seemed to be closed or to charge an entrance fee. The purpose of our trip is pilgrimage and sacred travel, but we can’t afford to pay to go into every church we would like to visit.
We did enter into the Church of St Moses, and it was beautiful and peaceful. Behind the altar there is a beautiful sculpture of Moses descending from Sinai with the 10 commandments. We took some time there to sit and breathe and feel the spirit.
Along with the churches, we were excited to see some places that feature prominently in some movies we like. So we saw the bridge where the knife fight happens in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning 1, and of course the Doge’s palace from that movie as well. And we saw the church/library where X marks the spot in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
The food in Venice was also great. We had take out pasta from a little place. I recommended cuttlefish ink pasta to the kids as kind of a joke, but they all agreed and enjoyed it. We got just two boxes and then sat in a line and passed them around taking a bite and moving to the next. The kids found that they filled up much better by eating slowly like this. Later, we got little gelato ice cream cones and we topped it off with a couple of delicious shared sandwiches -- one of which was called the Indiana Jones. It was amazing. It had mango and potato sauce and ham and cheese.
Mostly a visit to Venice is just walking around and taking it all in, and we did lots of that. River had one meltdown towards the end, but eventually she just fell asleep and I carried her around. It was tiring, but I’m really glad we got to come.
In the evening we had delicious homemade Cafe Rio salads back at the house, and then we prepped for our journey to Rome tomorrow.
Oh, and Delwyn, who is a chiropractor, gave us all adjustments. It was much needed and appreciated.