After the last few days of gloom and excited about discovering the route to by our new-found vaporetto stop at Fondmenta Nove, we decided to take the boat to the beach–Lido, Venice’s barrier island on the Adriatic Sea.
But the first stop was a visit to the little one-table seafood vendor on the way to the vaporetto stop, where we bought a fine looking fillet of white fish whose name we could not recognize in Italian and the seller could not describe in English. It looked good (and would taste great later that evening), sort of firm but very white. No trout here, but the promise of good flavor later.
Lido is a long, thin island to the south of Venice. It is a barrier island to the Adriatic Sea, offering some critical protection from storms that roll in from that direction. The vaporetto ride was only about 10 minutes, but when you land in Lido, you have left Venice. The first thing we saw at the waterbus stop was a wheeled bus, the first land vehicle we had seen in nearly two weeks. Lido sports full size streets, cars, bicycles and buses, just the like the rest of the world. Stay long enough in Venice, you tend to forget the rest of the world.
It was only about a ten-minute walk down the main street, currently under renovation, to cross the island and get to the beach. Along the way, we passed large, ornate buildings, mostly hotels, somewhat reminiscent of Nice in their Beaux Arts splendor and excess. Clearly, this is where the rich and entitled Venetians spend their summers if they can’t get to or afford Nice.
The beach itself was mostly deserted, as it would be in mid-February, populated by only a handful of curious visitors like us. The beach sand is a dark tan, full of shells and actually sandy, something we have not seen in a long time.
An hour of Lido in the middle of winter was plenty. We walked back to the vaporetto stop and caught the bus to San Marco for our daily sighting of Venice’s most famous landmark. It was less crowded than ever, but platforms had been erected everywhere with more stacked on the sides, ready for deployment in case of acqua alta. Did officials suspect something? (Predictions were indeed for fairly high but not extreme tides.)
The risers were already erected leading into San Marco Basilica, and–wonder of wonders–there was no line whatsoever to get into maybe the world’s second most famous Catholic church. We walked right in.
Instead of shuffling through the church with the guided tours on the ground floor, we diverted off to the right and up a very steep stairway to the museum and terraces overlooking the Piazza. Admission to the museum is five euros and worth every penny.
Inside the museum, we looked face-to-face with the spectacular mosaics that glisten golden inside the domes of San Marco. The official museum displays included portions of mosaics that had been salvaged from destruction and removal centuries ago, along with tapestries, carpets, vestments, illuminated manuscripts and carvings from the history of the church that dates back a full millenium.
At one of the displays, I realized why Pope John XXIII is so revered here in Venice–as Cardinal Roncalli, he was the vicar of Venice when he was elected Pope. At least four other vicars of Venice were also elected Pope, including Pius X, for whom our Lake Vista parish church is named.
The entrance to the museum area is highlighted by a 20-foot long diagram of the basilica’s history, showing its growth and expansion over the centuries as successive Venetian doges flaunted their power and glory by building their own contributions to the magnificent structure.
In addition to the artifacts, the four original bronze horses that pranced in the front of the church for centuries since they were stolen from Constantinople (and stolen again by Napoleon) are on display. The horse sculptures currently standing proudly outside above the church’s main entrance are replicas, placed there in 1981 so the originals would be spared the ravages of weather and pollution.
Since we were on a two-day vaporetto pass and essentially working on house money, we boarded the boat at the stop right in front of the Venice Yacht Club for the long trip around the island, past the legendary mega-yacht Carinthia VII on its mooring to the San Basilica stop to visit an obscure church. Chiesa Archangel Raphael plays a central role in a novel that Lynn had brought and read while we were in Venice. (I read the book too, and it is very definitely a chick-book.)
The church is located in what could be most charitably described as a lower middle class neighborhood of Venice, near the industrial and maritime areas. It is small by Venetian standards but no less elaborate and awe inspiring inside than all the others we have seen here. The book was very accurate in its description, and we were glad to visit this little obscure corner of Venice, not something the average visitor would ever encounter.
In one afternoon, we traveled from the ducal splendor of San Marco Basilica to the ordinary Renaissance workmanship of Chiesa Archangel Raphael. Only in Venice.