Nieuw Amsterdam 2012 - Exploring Venice, Italy

After breakfast in the hotel, we continued our walking tour in Venice. Amazing how many squares and churches fit in a relatively small city like Venice. Finding your way is not always easy since the streets are quite twisting and there are a lot of bridges to cross the canals. Soon, you will find out that every neighborhood is enclosed by canals and has a square with a church. Every quare (Campo) and church is on the map. So if you find the nearest church (which is never more than a couple of minutes’ walk), you know where you are again. For “long distance,” there are signs to Rialto, Academia, San Marco en Piazzale Roma on each street corner, so that will give you a sense of direction. This way we found our way through the small alleys and bridges of Venice and we passed the Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Campo San Polo and walked to the Rialto Bridge. It is very nice to walk around Rialto, although it is very crowded with little shops.

Venice to Rialto.

Across the Rialto Bridge we walked further along Campo San Bartolomeo (with the image of playwright Carlo Goldoni), Teatro Malibran, Campo di Santa Marina to Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo. The impressive large Dominican church SS. Giovanni e Paolo is the largest sacral building of the city. In front of the church is a statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni. At the square is also the Scuola di San Marco. This used to be the Brotherhood of St. Mark, but nowadays it houses the municipal hospital.

Venice panorama.

Scuola di San Marco.

After visiting Campo di San Maria Formosa and Campo San Zaccaria we went to the Riva degli Schiavoni, just around the corner of Piazza San Marco and saw something that is usually quite scary — seeing your cruise ship sailing by without you on it. It’s great to see a 12-floor building sailing through the lagoon. I know that the environmentalists in Venice protest against cruise ships regularly, the bow waves would harm the city, but they sail at a very slow pace. The vaporettos create much more waves than this large ship. Now we really look forward to starting our cruise tomorrow!

Nieuw Amsterdam entering Venice.

Nieuw Amsterdam entering Venice.

Afterward we went to the island of Murano. We were on the slow boat so we called at all the stops on the outside of Venice. It was crowded, we had to stand the whole way so that was not a very comfortable trip. We saw the Celebrity Solstice sailing into the lagoon. After that we passed the funeral island San Michele.

San Michele cemetery island.

After sailing for almost an hour, we set foot on Murano. Murano is an adorable island where glass is blown in the most varied forms. Ducks, fish, all sorts of animals but also abstract forms are blown from delicate glass. It was really great to see. Murano is also a great place to shop for smaller Murano glass items such as bracelets and earrings. Just before we headed back to the vaporetto stop, we saw a glassblower in action.

Murano.

Glass blowing in Murano.

We took a faster vaporetto back (it sailed through the lagoon and didn’t make every stop) but it still took over half an hour. At San Marco square we visited the Saint Mark’s Basilica.

Saint Mark's Basilica.

San Marco Square.

Then we decided to cross the canal and go up the tower on San Giorgio island. That failed because the Tower was closed. Instead we crossed the canal again and went to Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute. At the mouth of the Grand Canal is the great church of Santa Maria della Salute and a statue of a naked boy holding a frog by the leg.

Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute.

Then back to the hotel for our last night there. Tomorrow we board the Nieuw Amsterdam.