Venice, the next day

The problem with having the freedom to write long entries is having the time to finish them!

Alright, it was Sunday morning and time to hit the streets again before the crowds. Today, I was going to focus on Castello [another ward]. I headed back to the Riva delgi Schiavoni. It's a broad quayside where you can eat or buy tacky souvenirs, dodge the fake-handbag-selling-dudes, and run across a few panhandlers. Mostly though, you get on or off the vaporetto and dodge tourists!

There was a statue that I had taken pictures of the day before that I learned was of Bartolomeo Colleoni [1400-76]. He was a successful mercenary that bequeathed the State a large legacy on the condition that a statue of him was erected in front of St. Mark's. The State wanted the money, but was unwilling to commemorate an outsider in the Piazza. They commissioned a statue and he very much looks like a war hero. And then just to show that they have a sense of humor, there are pear-shaped objects on Colleoni's coat of arms that refer to a play on his name, which sounds very similar to the word coglioni ... testicles!

On the Riva delgi Schiavoni, there is the Hotel Danieli. It is an exclusive hotel where rooms are furnished with antiques, paved in marble and have Fortuny fabrics draped on the walls. Dickens, Proust, George Sand, Balzac and Wagner were all once residents.

Speaking of distinguished places, I forgot to say that I had stopped at Harry's Bar on Saturday. It's one of the most famous in Venice, and I would add, expensive. It has no terrace, service with an attitude, and a dress code for men [cover your knees]. I had a Bellini, a mix of peach juice and sparkling prosecco [wine]. It was about 3 oz. and cost 15 Euros. Two days later I had one in a cafe' in a campo outside of a Basilica and it was 8 oz. and cost 2.50 Euros! Ernest Hemingway used to spend a lot of time here, Harry's, that is, not outside the Basilica.

I headed East to the Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, a wide 19th-century street which is the heart of Castello for the locals. It's full of shops market stalls, and there's a park! It was the first "green" I had seen really. There was a park, the Giardini Publlici. There was a long, tree-lined street that led to some gardens created by Napoleon. The trees were particularly useful as an afternoon storm rolled through, complete with hail. I stood underneath the canopy of the trees and stayed virtually dry.

I also found this leaning tower. There were two distinct bell towers in Venice in addition to the Campanile, and they were both leaning. This one [on the right] is the church of San Giorgio degli Greci, Greek Orthodox. Greeks lived in Venice from the 11th century.

The one on the left is San Pietro. The church dates from 1557 and was the first seat of Patriarch of Venice. It has housed a bishop since the eighth century and did so until 1807, when the official seat was moved to San Marco.

San Pietro was near the boatyards. It was a very scenic walk. As I walked through the streets and along the canals, I almost felt like I was an intruder. You can hear conversations from inside the houses; see people gazing out of their windows; and really get a feel for what it's like to live here. When walking through here, I took off my camera and hid it in my bag and tried not to stand out so much as a tourist. I also found the place where they maintain and build the gondolas.

At the end of the day, I went back to the Canale della Guidecca on the Zattere [the long fondamente that borders the canal, created in 1519 and named after rafts that were once moored there] but to a different restaurant. This time, other Americans were about. I continue to gain an appreciation for the term, "ugly American". Remember I said before that most restaurants have an American menu to avoid ugly confrontations? There were a number of tables sat at the same time, all Americans, but apparently not together. A table of five women were next to me, and as they settled in, ordered their drinks and reviewed the menu, I was happy to just listen in on their conversation and try to figure out where they were from, and why they were traveling together. As the main waiter came back to table to take their appetizer order, one of the women suddenly stood up and told the waiter he was being rude. He [and I] were startled, after all, I had been eves-dropping. Anyway, she was adamant that he was being rude because they were thirsty and had not yet received their drinks and the table next to them had theirs and she intended to leave. As she was shouting this, a junior-wait-staff member, female, arrived with the tray of drinks and looked scared out of her apron! I think the waiter handled himself and the irate woman beautifully. They didn't leave, but I don't think they really ever understood or appreciated that the waiter was a professional. He wasn't a kid putting himself through school. He had very few tables to attend, and as a customer, the table is yours for the night. You are free to enjoy conversation, the food, the scenery, and you won't be rushed out because the wait-staff needs to turn that tables once or twice that evening. He was a polite man that brought them lemon cello at the end of their meal as an apology. I observed the irate woman drinking hers ... and two of her dinner-mates'!