Venice!

Trains in Italy go so fast that Marc's water bottle exploded when he opened the lid!

I

t's true, there are no words to describe Venice. 

I also won't talk about the €110 lunch we got scammed for. And in the off-season! We're just going to remember how delicious it was, sitting at a cafe on the ancient cobblestone streets with wine and sunshine, feeling pretty darn content. 

A 48-hour side trip from Florence, and the best sleep we've had so far, in a tiny hostel, best breakfast, coffee and company thanks to Umberto, our host. 

The mileage on our feet on these 2 days! Fun fact: there are no cars in Venice! Everything is accessed by Vaporetto, or public boat, boat taxis or gondolas! 

Sadly, Umberto lets us know "Venice is now for tourists, there is no 'local' Venice. We all work here, but live elsewhere."  Still, beautiful. We don't go inside anything, nothing is free. We spend 2 days wandering the labyrinth, sometimes barely wide enough for one set of shoulders.

Here we go, first up, Gondolas!

Gondoliers! They too need rest, check their cell phones while oaring or not. 

The Grande  Canal, or Main Street, Venice:

And it is a working town, so there is boat chaos! 

We buy our 24-hour Vaporetto tickets that lets us ride the public boats, and we travel down the main canal, alighting at a park station where we eat our picnic lunch brought from Florence. We hop back on to find the main Piazza, a glorious square that floods 200+ times per year! I make Marc sit for the obligatory espresso in the sun = €18 ! Hence the face.

And of course, a chance to feed the birds....

We check in to our hostel, drop our knapsacks and head back out, find a cheap dinner where we attempt to make sense of the labyrinth. It's really quite an engineering feat, this Venice.

We stumble around a corner and come upon a handmade sign that reads, "Welcome to the world's most beautiful book store!" It is stacked to the rafters with new, used, and barely held together books.  A gondola in the middle of the store filled with all sorts of cast-off reads. It is a museum more than a book store, and the owner is a stout old man, speaking perfect English, who loves our  choice of a 100 page quick read of 'How Venice was Built' for €5. He tells me to go through to the back where his book garden will surprise me!  Indeedy! 

We stroll some more, keep hopping on and off the Vaporetto,  return to the Piazza, it's  so beautifully lit, and come upon the barge that is off-loading this year's Christmas tree for the Piazza.

the next morning, we're off after fond good-byes to hostel-Umberto, to find a little place we've  read about. Somewhere here is the Gondolier Shipyard, where, if lucky, you can peer in and see them at work. We sleuth the maps for familiar landmarks based on the story and realize the back-side of Venice is where it's at! How perfect for us!, and it makes us laugh.  Without too much difficulty, we find it, and indeed, it's open, with a film crew outside interviewing one of the gondoliers. We hang out here for about 30 minutes, completely happy. 

Our last stop before catching our train back to Florence is the Jewish Quarter. A speckled and troubled history for sure, as elsewhere in the world. But with the Renaissance sweeping Europe in the 15th and 16th cenuries, they partipated in Venetian society (with limits), contributing  new ideas on religion, humanist  philosophy and medicine. By the 17th century, Ghetto Literary Salons were where all the intelligentsia could be found, no matter their faith, and it was Jewish leaders who brought everyone together.  Things changed obviously under Mussolini and then WW2. Out of 4,000 inhabitants at the start of the war, only 37 returned. Today, Jewish families are spread out around Venice, but still return here for schools, synagogue and a place for meeting socially. There's also a very poignant memorial, and you can somewhat feel the grief and history in the streets. Incredible.

Lastly, water bottle fill-up fountains, and boat parking. 

And when we see you: sewage and fresh water: Venice style! 

Ciao bella(s)!

And our first selfie of our lives!

Separate Shrines, Public Transit & Mothers

Our 2nd Sunday sees me ready to move through Florence on my own, which is perfect, since "Sunday is sports day!" and Marc is itching to see a rugby game. We decide its shrine day, he to his, me to mine - and we don't have to go with one another!

I've written before about the hills behind Florence, on the other side of the River Arno. We both are drawn up here time and time again, Marc on his every-other-day runs and me, the Monastery on the hill, where I know music is made and peaceful contemplation is waiting. Plus, neither of us ever, ever tire of this view, this time at dusk.

We head out together for the afternoon, with Marc dropping me at the bus stop to go to the Monastery 

di San Miniato as he heads over to the rugby grounds he's found. He's pretty sure that globally, no matter where you are, on Sunday at 3 pm, if there's a field and a Club, there's a game. He is not disappointed! He sits with the parents and fans of a Girls Team from Bologna, who crush the Florence team. He is mightily impressed with the Ref! He spends the afternoon at his shrine, conversing in so much more Italian than 2 weeks ago, and comes home very, very happy.

Meanwhile, at the bus stop, which I'm navigating to get to the Monastery! The public transit system in Florence is extensive, frequent, cheap and fairly easy to figure out. Most buses in the Centro Historico are tiny, seating maybe 15 people, cramming maybe 30. Other routes see the same-sized buses that we find in North America. There's also a light rail system on the outer ring of downtown, and a huge commuter rail line running out of the main Railway Station, Santa Maria Novella.

For €1.20, you can ride the transit line for 90 minutes. Even  converting from the Euro to a Canadian dollar, it is cheap and becoming a great way for us to expand our sightseeing from beyond the city centre. 

The bus driver will sell you a ticket for €2, but buying a 4-fare pass from the many machines throughout the city  is the normal practise. You get a small ticket  that you validate on the machine on the bus. Fare Police randomly travel the lines, checking that you've paid . This has happened to us here, and on the water bus in Venice, fines are huge and the system seems to work. We've noted how this system is more automated than ours, requiring fewer employees, so cheaper to run.

On-bus Validation machines:

The public transit system:

What we're interested in finding out: with no sales tax, what is the tax rate like to afford such an inexpensive transit system? We 're having an aperitif with our AirBnB hostess on Friday, and Marc has declared we will be ready with 12 questions in Italian! A great language exercise for this week!

So, Marc drops me at the bus stop, and off he goes to the rugby field. I'm feeling oh-so-confident that I've got this Monastery quest licked, standing happily at my bus stop, feeling like a local while the crowd grows, and no bus shows up! 30 minutes into my wait, a voice comes over the speaker system within the bus shelter announcing the delays on my line, in Italian. Amazing, a stop-specific intercom system, and I realize too, it's all solar-powered! Graciously, another person explains in hand gestures what I can't decipher, and I follow her lead to offer up a few "Mama Mia - Basta!", complete with more  hand gestures. After an hour, hurray!  Bus#13 shows up, on I get, and am whisked through the city and up through the hills, deposited at Piazza Michelangelo.

By now though, I'm frozen and desperate for a cup of tea before I head into what I know will be 2 hours inside the frozen cold Monastery. None of these churches are heated, an absolute impossible task due to size, age and infrastructure. And what  we've found out about hot drinks, order one standing, pay €1, want a chair with that? €5! I say to hell with the expense.... I'm on my own, I have some journal writing to do, it's a beautiful spot to be, and I envision myself to be this:

Ha!

My mother once told us a story that has stayed with me, and applies not only  to the cold I feel on  this day, but helps me with the €5 tea decision. One of my mother's dreams was to go to France, by herself, for an extended period of time, complete with classes.  She worked steadfastly towards this goal as she reached  the end of her role as a Mother of Six. She got herself jobs to fund it , enrolled in by-mail correspondence classes in French, and studied almost every night with a strong lamp, her dictionary and a glass of wine at our dining room table. This went on for years. I can still picture her there.  What I remember as being 'quickly' after my father died, she booked her ticket. FREEDOM! While away, she came to many decisions,  one of which was that upon her death, she wanted to be cremated - considered a sin under the Catholic teachings then, being devout throughout our youth. 

She struggled mightily with her loss of faith in the latter years of her life, and sitting in all those cold, 

cold  churches in France, she realized what it would feel like to be buried, so, not for her! Cremate 

her, we did.  

I finish my seated, €5 tea, and strengthened by it and my mother, I head up the steps and pathways to the Monastery. I have chosen this day because at dusk, the bells ring out, the Monks sing a Latin high 

mass, and afterwards their nightly Vespers are sung in Gregorian Chant. It is everything I'd hoped for and more. 

Doing a Bachelor of Music all those years ago, one of my first classes in the required Music History courses introduced me to Gregorian Chant, a tradition that has its roots in the plainchant singing documented  during the time of Christ. It is haunting and for me, truly sacred. It has never been about the religion, but the contemplative simplicity of the chants - it really is universal no matter who or what you're worshipping. 

I join the others drifting in, and follow them to  the bowels of the Monastery, quite creepy actually!, I 

light candles in honour of so many I've loved on my way by.  There are about 100 of us, most attendees greeting each other with the double cheek kiss. The sermon is fervent, but I have no idea what this head Monk is saying. It's beautiful to listen to and I sit in quiet peace throughout it all. 

The gated  fence is opened for Mass, 8 monastery Monks light so many candles, till this nave  is absolutely illuminated. I watch them all from my front row pew, marble  tomb engravings underneath my feet, the eldest Monk in his 80s - complete with a knitted woolen cap and thermal fleece gloves, to the youngest, who looks to be about 25, shaved head, and by  the size of all their girth, what I believe must be snow suits under their tunics to keep warm in this place! The Monastery of San Miniato dates from the 4th century, the current building erected during the 12th. You can feel that it is a holy, holy place. 

The exterior of San Miniato  at dusk. You can see and hear it wherever you are down below in Florence. The Monks  live in the building to the right. It is an active Monastery, gardens, a massive cemetery, including the tomb of Carlo Collodi, the author of Pinocchio! The Monks make jams, honeys, soaps, candles, they have a working bee farm and grow seasonal  vegetables as well.

Spectacular, no matter where you are. 

The end of the service begins with the Gregorian Chant. I don't stay for all of it as the chill in my bones can't take it. I exit the grounds, descend the steps, through the Piazza, down, down  the paths that Marc has taken us on, along the River Arno, across the bridge, back to the city and our home. A stellar, stellar  afternoon. We both meet at the apartment, invigorated by spending  time at each, our own, shrines. 

Brief sample of Gregorian Chant.