Anniversary in Venezia (05/26 - 05/27/2012)

To celebrate our anniversary we made the 3.5 hour drive to Venice (Venezia).  Derrick had been to Venice once before, but this was my first visit.

On Saturday morning our first stop was the Ducal Palace where the region of Venice was ruled from when it was an independent country.

Palazzo Ducale

 

The Giant's Stairway

Across from the Palace, over the Bridge of Sighs (Ponte dei Sospiri), were the cellblocks where the many prisoners were kept  

Uh oh, Derrick's been arrested by the Terrible Ten

Next on our list of sights was St. Mark's Cathedral.

Piazza San Marco

Mosaics on the outside of St. Mark's

Pala d'Oro altar screen at St. Mark's

The altar screen contains 300 emeralds, 300 sapphires, 400 garnets, 100 amethysts, and 1,300 pearls!

We also made a trip to the church and scuola (school) of San Rocco.  Inside the Scuola Grande the entire ceiling is covered in gold and paintings.  This was Derrick's favorite museum.

Church of San Rocco

Scuola Grande of San Rocco. 

Our last stop of the day was the Santa Maria della Salute church.  We were pretty worn out after this; 3 churches, 1 palace, and a museum were enough for one day.

The Salute

Interior of the Salute.

Our hotel was a nice little place on the Lido.  The Lido (beach) is the island just south of the main part of Venice, and we were able to get back and forth to the Lido on the vaporetti (water buses).

Hanging out on our balcony.

 

That evening we found a little restaurant on the canal and were able to watch all the boats sailing by as we ate.  At the table next to us was a group of students from Vanderbilt on a summer study abroad program.  It was nice to be able to talk with other Americans for a little bit and hear about their adventures.

 

This was probably around 8:30 PM.  The sun doesn't set until around 9:30 PM here in the summer.  The Vanderbilt students took this picture for us =-)

On Sunday morning the Venice equivalent of a fun run was going on with hundreds of boats and people rowing through the canals in an event called Vogalunga.  It was interesting to watch them rowing by, but it made transportation very difficult.  The majority of the vaporetti weren't running, so we had to walk through the maze of Venice's streets to get to our remaining sights.

On Sunday we went to the Ca' d'Oro museum as well as the old Jewish Ghetto.  Unfortunately the museum in the ghetto was closed for a religious holiday, so we will have to come back to visit some other time.

Ca' d'Oro

Plaques commemorating the Jewish Venetians who died during WWII.

Overall it was a great weekend of sight seeing and fun, with quite a bit of gelato thrown in as well 

= )

Happenings About Town

Derrick and I decided to drive to Forte di Fuentes, which you'll remember I had so much troubling finding in Two Forts & A Tower.  It turned out to be painfully close to where I had reached on my unsuccessful hike.  Regardless, we had fun exploring it together and Derrick is always a fan of any type of ruins.

The large circle behind us is the fake entrance to the fort.  Apparently they had to build a fake entrance to make it look symmetrical.

These garage like areas were actually stations for cannons as they reused the fort during WWI.

This is me putting on my battle face.

They still flew the Italian flag at the top of the remains of the fort.  You can see these flag flying from Derrick's office. 

The remains of the fort's Chapel.

This structure was the officers's quarters.

 

Another fun event for us happened when my uncle came into town with his band the Yellowjackets to perform at a jazz club in Milan.  Derrick had never heard them play, and I probably hadn't been to one of their concerts in 10 years.  My Uncle was nice enough to put us on the guest list at the club, and we were able to enjoy a very fun evening in the city.  The band really put on a fabulous show, though they put so much energy into the concert I wondered how they'd have the stamina for a second performance.  They performed 2 shows a night (one at 9PM and one at 11PM) for three nights in a row!  Their fans in Milan were so excited to have them there.  Afterwards everyone stuck around wanting to talk to the band, take pictures, and get autographs.  We stuck around to get a picture too =-)

My Uncle's the one rocking out on the saxophone.  Sorry for the picture quality, these were covert shots taken on Derrick's iphone so they wouldn't disturb people with a camera flash.

Now he's playing what I think he called a "synthesized instrument"

Thanks for an awesome performance Yellowjackets!