All that glitters...

Ciao Ragazzi!
This past weekend I made a return trip to Venezia! This time, the entire group went with our Art History professor, Linda Reynolds. It was a very different experience and thankfully, much warmer since the sun was out!!! Below is a picture of San Marco, the famous church in Venezia with the hundreds of pigeons. These birds are the most disgusting things I've ever seen, and yet many people bring bird seed and try to see how many birds they can get to sit on their arms and head... ugh! They are super used to humans too, so they have no problem flying up to you, and I definitely wanted to kick one by the end!

Anyway, our first stop was Palazzo Ducale, where the Venitian head of government sat. The Palace is quite incredible with an enormous amount of detail and gold everywhere! It was fairly obvious that the Venitians were uber wealthy and loved to show it off! The coolest part of the Palazzo Ducale was the dungeons! There was a system in Venezia where there were these drop-box like statues on the walls so that a person could write down a name of a traitor and put it in the statues mouth and it would be deposited in a box on the other side of the wall, where a clerk would collect them and sort through the names. Each person was investigated and if there was really any speculation, they were pretty much condemned.... So we followed the paths of the 'criminals' and walked down to the dungeons. They were pretty neat looking, and pretty creepy when you think of the things that went down in those cells! But don't get the wrong impression, some of the prisoners lived the good life. The famous Cassanova and other aristocrats often had women brought to them and had feather beds and good food. This of course, didn't mean they weren't killed... The prisoners were then taken across a bridge to where they were executed and there is a small window in the bridge. The story goes that prisoners would look out the window, knowing it was the last time they would see their beautiful Venezia, and sigh... Therefore, the bridge is called the Bridge of Sighs. The picture below is Mariana and I with our headphones so that our professor could whisper and we could still hear her... apparently they are pretty picky in Venezia...

Next we were supposed to go to another church and watch the sunset from the clerestory level, but our professor forgot what time the church closed, so we sat bobbing up and down on the water bus (vaporetto) for 45 minutes until we figured out that we couldn't go in... ugh! So then we went back to San Marco and Professor Reynolds told us all about the church. Then we had about 2 hours of free time! This was fantastic because we got to wander and look in all the shops for gifts and stuff like that! I bought a really beautiful necklace of San Marino crystal for myself and a gift or two! Now we come to the best part of the trip! Our professor organized it so that we could see the interior of San Marco at night, with no one else there. We had to wait for mass to end, so we looked around the narthex for a while, the picture below is of the narthex. The entire church is Byzantine influenced, because Venezia had many trading partners outside of Italy. This, of course, means the entire thing is decorated and most of the mosaics are gold!!!

Once inside, we were not allowed to take pictures, hence the 'google image' I found below. We walked in and all the lights were off except for a dim one at the end of the nave. We sat in the first few rows and the turned off all the lights. It was quite creepy to only see red candlelight around us, but then they began to turn the lights on slowly. Unfortunately, words nor pictures can do the experience justice. It was one of the most awe-inspiring and dramatic things I have ever experienced in my life, and is surely one I will never forget. It's easy to understand how so many people were moved by this sight. It's indescribable and was just one of those moments where you're at a loss for words, very moving. Aside from the beauty, the technique and ability of the mosaics is baffling... I know I'm rambling, but it's fascinating that the entire ceiling is made of tiny bits of gold and glass...

After San Marco, the entire group went out to a pizzeria to celebrate some birthdays and then settled in for the night. The next day, we visited the Accademia, but we were all so exhausted, that our Professor cut the day short. A large group went back to Firenze early, but Mariana and I decided to stay in Venice and have a leisurely lunch and see the city. We got gelato (even though it was super cold!) and people watched at the Rialto bridge! Then we made our way home on a 3 hour train ride! Even though it was a whirlwind adventure... our weekend wasn't over yet... Sunday it was off to Chianti!