A City Underwater

Word of the Post: Mare (Sea)

Venice. A city underwater. This was our weekend vacation, and underwater it was. We arrived to the beautiful Venice on Friday afternoon (the 12^th). We were welcomed by sunshine and dry paths. By 4:00 it was thunder storming and the paths were flooded. Despite the rain, the boats still ran. In Venice, no one drives cars or vespas because the Adriatic Sea runs throughout the entire city—so you will notice taxi boats!

The sun eventually came back out and we were able to go have a dinner right on the water in a setting that felt just like a movie. We ordered two bottles of wine (for 8 of us), got some pizza, and just discussed how awesome it was to be where we were sitting.

The following morning we woke up to sunshine but less than three hours later a thunderstorm began to brew and didn’t stop until midnight—fourteen hours of absolute downpour.

Our last day consisted of intervals of sunshine and rain. By the time we left, I wondered how every building hadn’t one down like the Titanic in this city underwater.

Even with the rain though, Venice proved to be just as amazing as all the other places we had seen. Much less chaos surround Venice—probably because you don’t have to avoid crazy vespa drivers and slow walking pedestrians. The streets are lined with stores filled with jewels and tiny cafés. The city itself is filled with small bridges in order to get around. And the water is filled with boats. We were even lucky enough to get a free five minute gondola ride.

Our trip to Venice included seeing several churches and museums. My favorite museum was the Scuola Di San Rocca. I am convinced that I have museum and church ADD—I find it extremely hard to listen to the professors about all the stories (Probably because as a child I was dragged into many museums by my parents), but something about this museum really made me pay attention. I found two paintings that I found myself in awe of. One was “Christ Healing the Paralitic” by Tintoretto and the other was “St. Francis di Paola resuscitates a dead child” by Sebastiano Ricci.

The first of the two, was a painting that seemed to be filled with all this sadness but alongside there was a ray of hope (in this case Christ). All around you see dull colors meshed together as a symbol of devastation. People are suffering from lepracy. They just need hope and the painting symbolizes that hope is there. People aren’t looking at this ray of light that is right in front of them. They are looking away waiting for that light. It seems it is there even though no one seems to know it. The painter communicates with the onlooker that there is always hope and that there is always a way even if we don’t know it. There are no bright colors in the immediate focus of the painting, wounds are showing, and people are holding one another. However, in the background there is a tiny piece of the painting filled with a blue sky and sunlight—another symbol of hope.

The second painting is different from the first however one idea is similar. There is pain and healing, but this time people can see the ray of light that has come to them. As St. Francis brings a dead baby back to life, people are looking on. The colors are brighter, and the wounds of those in the painting are covered up. They can feel the hope and see it. Hands are reaching out. Good things are coming to those in the painting, and they know it.

The day following this museum tour, we went and saw St. Marks which is filled with mosaics that just stand out like a sore thumb. One part was made of simply just gold. We then were going to go to the palace, but the weather rained on our parade (literally).

The last day we visited the Guggenheim collect which is a collection of modern art.

One last thing that I can tell you about Venice is that I had the best cup of cappuccino ever. The server made the milk from a heart shape—those creative Italians.

Venice, while rainy was simply the most calming place that we have encountered thus far. Compared to Florence, it was ten times less hectic (and compared to Rome one hundred times less hectic)—it was nice not to have to play Frogger across roadways—but instead walk over tens of bridges a day and listen to the sounds of the sea hitting the coast.