Venezia Days 9 & 10
Our last day in Venice we decided to finally hit the Doge's palace. We caught a vaporetto at San Basilio in the Dorsoduro and headed to Piazza San Marco, got our tickets and headed into the splendor of the the main building. On the way to San Marco the route we took first stopped at Giudecca, the southernmost island of the city. Next trip we must make it to both San Elena and Giudecca for day trips. The Giudecca Hilton hotel is on the western part of this island and is a massive building.
The route we took dropped us east of the Bridge of Sighs and we walked the couple blocks back to the Piazza. There was hardly any line on this Wedensday morning so we got in within 5 minutes. What a place. We covered all that we were allowed to, including the prison. If you make reservations a few days in advance you can take the Secret Itinerary which is a tour of the internal passageways of the palace. These paths take you behind the walls, through secret doorways hidden in the wall panels. I'm not sure whether it would have been worth it on our first trip because we still spent 3 to 3 1/2 hours, cold hours, just seeing the open areas. The extra time would have killed our feet.
We started in the Opera, actually a series of rooms where artifacts from reconstruction are displayed. These were columns and other structural elements,including capitals, that have been replaced with reconstructions during the various renovations. There have been several reconstructions over the centuries. Anything this old has to be renovated constantly.
The palace was originally a fortification that, over the centuries, was developed into the palace that it is today. The central courtyard, with it's separate entrance to the Basilica and the great stairway to the mezzanine. It's just a prelude to the grandeur within. The public access takes you up the Golden Stairway, several levels of marble steps, gilded ceilings and statuary. It was intended to impress visitors to the palace with Venice's power and the Doge's importance and it surely must have worked.
You are routed through a series of reception rooms, eventually leading you to the rooms where criminal and civil judgements were made. Along the way you see where the various groups of the Republic's leaders held their meetings on civic matters, setting policies, deciding on which wars to fight, etc. In one room there appears to be a closet, but it's actually access to one of the secret passageways, eventually leading to the prison. The ceilings and walls are adorned with paintings from mythology and Venetian history. Linking the power of the city and the Doge to Greek and Roman gods and legends is a common theme throughout this place and in the Medici palaces in Florence. They had to justify their rule in some way and not always dependent on the grace and glory of the Church. Remember, Venice, Florence and the Vatican were secular rivals in Italy for centuries. Often rivals for power, land and money and sometimes allies against the others.
You are then sent through the Armoury where a collection of weapons are stored. Some are marked with the emblem CX, which stands for the Council of Ten, 7 senators, the Doge and 2 major city officials. After the armory we entered the hall where the full city senate would meet. It's a grand space and the photos show it.
After traveling through the palace you can enter the prison, through the Bridge of Sighs. The bridge actually has two aisleways, one used to take prisoners to incarceration and the other to bring them back to the palace for trials. The side to the prison is on the opposite side from the basin so there's no place for a prisoner to see his family if they were standing on the bridge over the canal. We entered the prison and went down, down, and down. We joked about entering Dante's levels of hell but it's sobering to think of being warehoused here with little clothing, no heat, pitiful food for the rest of you life. You'd be lucky to die from disease early. You are eventually at or below the water level and then have to climb back up and across the Bridge of Sighs back to the palace. It's the only way out.
Before I leave my Venice blogs some words about some great restaurants we ate at. None were inexpensive. Most of the time with a shared pasta, two secundis, water, wine and dessert you're hitting 65-75 euros. Thankfully we had an apartment and cooked half of our dinners and all of our breakfasts. I'd recommend apartments as the way to see Venice. There's a great problem though with apartments being purchased by investors and converting them for tourist stays. Prices of apartments are nearly equal to those in Seattle, 300-400 thousand euros. Those less than that require renovation, sometimes massive reno. Our host has 5 in Venice. One he recently completed was a magazzin, a vacant, dilapidated storeroom on the street level in the Cannaregio district. He made it into a studio. At least no one was driven out of their house. You see this stencil frequently in the city, protesting the increased costs of living driven by tourist accommodations.
On the Campo San Margherita there is small bistro, Bollicine. Go there. A huge wine selection, good food and a favorite of locals. It became our favorite almost-daily stop for a drink and a light snack in mid-afternoon if we were near. On our way back from the Rialto we always stopped for at least a drink. It was only a 5-10 minute walk from the apartment we had and that made it convenient. Say hi to Samantha, a young lady working there that was from the same town in Sicily that my grandmother was born in, Erice.
Al Vecchio Marangon on Calle Della Toletta is a small family run place frequented by locals and people from the nearby university sites. I neglected to note our menu selections but I believe we had the pasta bolognese and truffle and porcini mushrooms. Rae had veal of some kind, naturally.
Ai Tri Ponti, near the Piazzale Romana, provided good service and excellent food. If you know some Italian it helps, even though the head waiter speaks English pretty well. We got better service than a German tourist couple there. The Sea Bream and Fegato Venezia were cooked perfectly.
Pane Vino has two restaurants. One on Calle Lunga San Barnaba, just west of the Campo San Barnaba was recommended. The other is Pane Vino San Daniele, over by Campo San Sebastiano and a bit closer to our aparment. We ate at the Pane Vino A San Barnaba sharing the pasta w/ duck ragu as primi, and prawns and tonno steak as our secundis. There is an Osteria right across the street and it appears to be connected in some way. Pizzas were being taken from Pane Vino to it all through our dinner. Interesting enough was that the duck ragu was a white sauce. We expected tomato based
A little further west on Calle Lunga San Barnaba is Al Profeta. Its rated by many as the best pizza in Venice. We wouldn't know. We shared Tagliatelle with truffle and boar ragu, again a white ragu because red would have overcome the truffles. Cathy had suckling pig and I got the fillet of kangaroo. The kangaroo was really good. Like eating fillet mignon. You need to get reservations for this place. Set them up a couple days in advance if you want to get in. We tried one night, Monday, at 7:30 w/out reservations and would have had to wait till 9. That's when we went down to Pane Vino. The next time we got there just before they opened at 7 on Wednesday and got a table but we had to be done by 9. We were lucky. By 8 the place was packed.