We took a plain from Berlin to Venice airport and got a Vaporetto along the Grand Canal to Venice when we got to our stop we set out to look for our square campo San Angelo. When we found our apartment we dropped our bags and we went out to explore this amazing city. We wandered aimlessly through the narrow streets until we found our selves in St. Marks square the beautiful
Campanile, Basilica and St. Marks Lion. There we pigeons scattered around the square and people feeding them Ruben found a peace of bread and held it out for the pigeons one pigeon flew up and landed on his arm and ate out of his hand. We went along the canals and saw little fish under the bridges and swimming in the water. There were many mask shops and we went in a few of them in some of the shops you could see the masks being made and I tried some on. The masks come from way back when Venice had the plague the doctors wore black cloaks and white masks with long beaks and they would put pepper in the long nose to protect them selves from the sickness they would come to your door and collect the dead then they would take the sick and the dead in a boat to an island and bury you or even leave you to die. You can still find the bones of the dead all over the island and strewn on its shores.
We went to the Billa, a big grocery store on the Riveria to get some supplies for the week. We got Nutella for the first time, which we spread on buns for breakfast each morning.
Thinking we were late my mother and I rushed to the Fenice to enjoy a night of music. The musician was a Pianist, he played, Schumann Mendelssohn, Mozart among others.
The building was beautiful with its giant chandelier and exquisite painted ceiling.
The next day we went to the fish market and got some food for dinner. Dad made squid with lemon and garlic it was the best. We also had green beans sausage and salad.
We took a tour around Venice in a boat with a man who had lived there all his life. We stopped in a café for lunch and I got lasagna some nice bread and a hot chocolate. The tour guide told some interesting stories about Venice. It was really beautiful but I could not really hear him. Seeing Venice from the water is a lot of fun and dad got to drive the boat but we did get cold.
The next day we went to the Jewish Ghetto and visited the 5 Synagogues there. There was one for the German Jews one for Spanish Jews one for one the Italian Jewish community and two others. The Jews had to pay Christian guards to guard the Ghetto. In one of them the floor was sinking with the weight of the Bima and the Aron Kodesh at ether end of the synagogue, and was bulging up in the center of the synagogue. At one point there was five thousand Jews in the Ghetto and now there is only four hundred. The synagogues were very old interesting and beautiful.
The next day we visited to the St. Marks basilica it was very beautiful and it had a giant chandelier write in the center that hung from a chain from the very top of the ceiling to about two feet above the ground. The stonework was amazing on the floors with all its patterns and different colored stones.
It was the Doge’s private Cathedral.
We then visited the doges palace write next door where we took the tour of the secret chambers. They were very secretive. We visited the secret passageways, prison cells, an interrogation room, and the infamous Bridge of Sighs. We learned quite a lot about a particular prisoner named Casanova and during his time in the prison ended up making a whole in the floor of his cell with a piece of metal that he had found up in the attic when he was let out in to the attic because he had a sell with a very low ceiling and so was let out once a day he hid the hole under his bed and just when the whole was getting big enough his guards came and told home that they had found the proper sell for him and that it would be the perfect height for him and they asked him if he was happy and he said no. But in his new sell he met another prisoner who was a priest who had five teen children so they kind of made friends and began to talk to each other and Casanova was let into the priests sell and one day Casanova told the guard that he wanted to get his new friend a present and so the guard aloud him go to the market and get something. Casanova bought the priest a Bible and when he got back to his sell he put the piece of metal in then he asked his guard to take it to the priest. The priest then began digging and finally when the whole was ready Casanova went on a visit, the priest had covered the hole up with an image of the virgin Marry so Casanova went and they both escaped into the hallway bellow where they walked down the stairway and straight out the front gates of the Doges Palace and from there they both fled to different places. Casanova did return to Venice and the priest eventually asked to be let back in to prison because he could not afford to house and feed himself as well as he in prison .
We went for many little strolls and we had some good ice cream and pizza, I love pizza.
Venice is beautiful!
Sincerely,
your traveling student
Mia
Ruben's week In Venice:
We arrived in Venice by a squishy boatful of people. We motored up the grand canal and got off at our stop. Our campo san Angelo square was beautiful, it was quiet, it had a leaning tower and it had bridges every-were we wanted to go. The first thing we did after we dropped our bags off was to wander. We got to know our neighborhood a little better. Where cool stores were, where the grocery stor was and to where find ice cream. One of my favorite places to be was Saint Marks square or “Pigeon Square” as I called it. Luckily for me, I found a piece of bread but unlucky for mom. Mom does not appreciate birds like me, she would not even touch me after Pigeon Square. I thought the masks were really neat, I learned the history of a mask with a long bird nose. The people that took the dead away when the plague came to Venice put pepper in the beak of the mask so they didn’t get sick themselves.
The architecture in Venice is unique, it is a mix between Gothic, Byzantine and Moorish .
Now what to say about the canals? They can be stinky, they have a weird color and are swarming with boats. We had Gregg family luck once again with the weather. It was sunny every day. Sadly we didn’t go on a gondola, they were too expensive. Did you know that the Gondola is built tilted at an angel so that the driver can stand strait up on one side? I loved having authentic Italian pizza, double thumbs up! I had pizza with five cheeses, French fry pizza and tomato pizza.
We went to the Jewish Ghetto. The stone floor of a synagogue we visited, had a bulge in the middle, it was a little scary to stand on. On one of the last days we went to the Dodges Palace. The republic was very protective of its secrets. We had a tour of the secret chambers. The people who wrote documents there, were only hired for a month at most, they could only copy down a couple of sentences at one time and were actually illiterate. We also saw the armory with ancient weaponry such as claymores and guns. There were also lots of cool paintings.
Well that’s all for this week.
Your devoted travelling student,
Ruben
