Days: 8 - 10
Sept. 23-25, 2006
Euros
Conversion rate on
our visit:
$1.27 = €1.00
Venice
                            
       
What We Had
Lower 70
Rain early...
Beautiful PM
Averages
High: 72° F Low: 55° F
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Page Index
What We Saw
•  Gondola Tour
•  La Fenice Opera House
•  Chiesa dei Frari (Frari Church)
•  Burano (Lace) Island
Where We Ate
•  Antica Sacrestia Restaurant
Where We Stayed
•  Hotel Lloyd

  Overview Itineraries


Venice Itinerary Day 1


Venice Itinerary Day 2

 
  Overview
After leaving Ruette we drove winding roads thru mountains with pine trees and saw picturesque villages in the valleys below. The landscape through this part of the world is worth visiting all on its own. We made a quick stop at Zugspitze which is the highest point in Germany to take in the magnificent view. When driving by Innsbruck, Austria we noticed that due to the location of the ski jump the Olympic ski jumpers had to jump over a cemetery.


Stop for lunch
As we left Austria we traveled south through Northern Italy a land with the style of Bavaria and occupied by Austria until the end of WWI. It's difficult to know exactly when you move from country to country. Although we hurried on our way to legendary Venice we took the opportunity to stop in at one of the hill towns, Egna. After lunch at an open air restaurant, we finished up with our first official Italian gelato! There were so many more cones-ful while we were in Italy.

Next, we stopped at our hotel (before going to the island), dropped off our bags and hopped back on the bus. Our next stop was the last stop for all "wheeled" vehicles in Venice, the Tronchetto (car park). UnlikeAmsterdam, there are NO roads in Venice, so they can't go any further. Venice was built this way to prevent armies from attacking.
 


Rialto Bridge


Wine and Welcome

We now boarded a water taxi, called a Vaporettos, for our trip down the Grand Canal to the Rialto Bridge. So let's get the big question out of the way...no the canals didn't smell. As a group, we walked to a small street-side wine take away where Lisa treated us to a wine tasting welcome party. From there we walked to the Plaza of San Marco. The Square is the center of all the tourist/none-tourist activity in Venice. It's surrounded by the Doge's Palace and St. Mark's Basilica on one end and the local government offices rimming the rest.
 
 
 
 


Restaurants and shops in St. Marks square
There were with some restaurants, shops and bars located on the ground level of the government buildings. Several restaurants had small bands that competed with each other as the evening went on. The group then broke apart for dinner (we grabbed some cal-zones and gelato and ate them on the plaza) some window shopping (up/down the streets near the plaza) and came back together later for a group gondola ride. Yeah...real touristy! But fun, none the less.   



St. Marks Square
We finished the evening with being VERY crowded in both a Vaporetto and a bus ride back to our hotel. You have to understand America's concept of a crowded bus has nothing to do with that concept in Venice. When we thought the bus was full, more people push onto the bus. At one point, the driver attempted to close the door but could not because a late passenger was in the way. That person did not get off the bus, he just pushed in harder so the door would close. Crowded...no, sardines!!    
  
 


Approaching Venice from the Lagoon
Day two was loaded with sight seeing and a group dinner. We started for Venice after the others had already left. We thought we were getting onto a Vaporetto that went to St. Mark's via the Grand Canal. Instead it took us there by traveling through the Lagoon east of Venice. This turned out to be a great alternative. It was faster then all the stops would have been going down the Grand Canal and it gave us a great view of Venice!

When we arrived at St. Mark's we found it flooded! You can see from the picture, they set up plateforms so visitors can cross the square "above" the water. They are so use to the square flooding, it was basically ignored. Check out the Things We Saw and Where We Ate for the rest of our day.

And who could forget the music that took us back to the hotel.
  What We Saw Gondola Tour
Sept. 23, 2006
The end of our first day in Venice was topped off with a very-tourist thing to do a ride on a gondola. We met at a place that would best be called a gondola parking pond. As you can see, Venice looks really great at night (and when you're there it ISN'T blurry).

We loaded 6 people into all the gondolas except one. That one had the two couples with the longest marriages (Dick and Rose, Jack and Jan) and the musicians. We were all close enough to them to hear the music as well.

I have to tell you that while a gondola ride is a very tourist thing to do, we really enjoyed it. It was a unique way to see Venice from the canals and it was a very peaceful ride as well.  
 
  What We Saw La Fenice Opera House
Sept. 24, 2006
The Opera House in Venice burned down in 1996.  It wasn't save because of a series of errors.  The canal on which it sits was empty so there was no water to fight the fire and fire boats could not reach the site, the smoke alarms and heat sensors had been disconnected, the existing sprinkler system had been disconnected before the replacement was installed, flammable materials were left laying about (open, close and spilled on the floor) from a restoration in progress at the time, rolls of plastic carpeting pilled high and heaps of rubbish everywhere and men were working with blow torches and soldering irons.

The place is not easy to find (like most things in Venice).  As you can see from the picture, the hall is tucked in between a bunch of buildings. It's hard to see how big it is and, since it was locked, we couldn't go inside.

Emblem
La Fenice Opera House
Campo San Fantin, 1965
30124 Venezia, Italy
Tel: +39 041 786511
      
 
 
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  What We Saw Chiesa dei Frari (Frari Church)
Sept. 24, 2006
Rick Steves says his "...favorite art experience in Venice is seeing art in situ-the setting for which it was designed-and my favorite example is the Chiesa dei Frari".  Since we didn't visit all the other art experiences in Venice, we'll take Rick at his word.  We thought it was pretty special as well.

The severe, imposing façade is built in a late Gothic style and is divided into three parts with Venetian-Byzantine capital-topped pillars. The interior is just as magnificent: the church is built on a Latin cross pattern, with a central aisle and side aisles, divided by twelve massive pillars. There are many works of art by important painters such as Tiziano, Palma il Giovane and Piazzetta in the church. The ancient convent and oratory house the city’s archives: there are 15 million volumes that contain the Serenissima’s entire history.

Emblem
Chiesa dei Frari (Frari Church)
S. Polo, 3072
30125 Venice
Tel: +39 041 272 8611
FAX: +39 041 272 8690
      
 
  What We Saw Burano (Lace) Island
Sept. 24, 2006
During our full day in Venice, some of our group went to the islands off the coast of Venice. One of those islands is Burano well know for it's lace. It's a sleepy little place where the bustle of Venice is left behind. The pictures below are of Jan and Jack Donner's trip to Burano. 
 
 
  Where We Ate Antica Sacrestia Restaurant
Sept. 24, 2006

Emblem
Antica Sacrestia Restaurant
4442 Castello
Venezia, 30122, Italy
Tel: 041-5230749
FAX: 041-5281536
         
 
 
  Where We Stayed Hotel Lloyd
 


Hotel across the street where we had breakfast
 
 


The Bathroom
 
This was NOT our favorite hotel on the trip.  Being off the island and at a hotel of this quality tarnished Venice!  On the first night it turned out to not be as bad as it looked and the air conditioning provided a very comfortable and quiet night sleep. Not so true on our second night. After spending a busy day seeing all the sites of Venice and looking forward to a good night sleep in an cool, quiet and air conditioned room we arrived instead to our warm and stuffy room. No problem, a quick call to the front desk should resolve the issue.  Not so fast! When we asked how to resolve our air conditioning issue, we were told that THEY DON'T HAVE AIR CONDITIONING! What? When we told them that we had used it the night before, they "suggested" (without hesitation) that we must be mistaken because They DON'T HAVE AIR CONDIIONING.  Yup...we'd had it the night before but not on the second night hot and tired as we were. And that wasn't the end of it.  Since we had to have the windows open to "cool" the room, we were awakened by the a cacophy of road noise that could only be compared to a busy intersection in New York. Almost the perfect ending for the hotel from hell! angry

So why the bathroom picture?  Simple, it's also part of this story.  The bathroom was so small that they had to cut out part of the door so it closed.  Also notice the shower handle?  It's behind the shower curtain on the right?  To take a shower you wedge yourself into the corner between the toilet and wall. cheeky What fun.

Bottom line...this place sucked. no

 A Special Note  When updating the website in 2024, I noticed that this hotel is still there but appears to have under gone a SIGNIFICANT restoration!  Of course, it's clear that they spent most of the budget on the enterance and lobby, but not so much on the rooms, i.e., note that none of the shots of the rooms include a picture of the bathroom. Just saying...  Think twice!

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Hotel Lloyd
Via Rizzard1, 32
Venice, 30175, Italy
Tel: 041 930041
FAX: 041 930798