World Cruise Day 84/152 - Venice (Fusina), Italy (Day 2) - Arrivederci Italia!

Cruise day: 84/152

Ports days: 32
Sea days: 52
Countries: 15
Continents: 4
Ports: 23

First off, apologies to Viking as I forgot to mention yesterday that when we returned to our room after our late excursion, Viking had a nice three-tier tower waiting in our room with blueberry tarts, a chocolate dessert mousse thingy (that's a culinary term), sliced fruit, and two types of sandwich wraps.  That's a nice thoughtful touch for many that due to Italy's ridiculous requirement that we had to waste an hour each way returning to the ship between excursions, might not have been able to get dinner.  We had been able to scarf down a quick dinner so we popped the wraps in the fridge and ate them for breakfast.  That helped because our excursion today started at 8:15am.

We hopped on the bus for the scenic 30-minute ride to the terminal. See yesterday's blog if you don't recognize that as sarcasm.  Then, it was about a 45-minute boat ride over to San Giorgio Maggiore, another island directly across from St. Mark's Square.  We were there to visit the Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore - Church of San Giorgio Maggiore.

See that yellow thing on the left?  Do you know what that is?  Remember, Venice has no cars.  That means to get around, you need a boat.  But what if you don't have or want a boat?  Well, that is the same deal if you don't want or have a car anywhere else - you use available mass transportation.  In Venice, that means a bus...boat.  That yellow thing is a bus stop!

The bus driver (boat captain) whips the bus (boat) up to the bus stop (dock), passengers jump off and on, and they take off, just like on land.  It's pretty interesting to watch.

Views from the front of the church are impressive and would be even more so on a better weather day.  Remember, Venice was not on the original or even the revised itinerary for this cruise.  Tourist (and better weather) season starts around April 1, so we are here well ahead of normal tourist times.  Still, it is a nice enough view that many Venetians get married here so they can take photos with St. Mark's Square behind them.  I get it.

Outside the church, there is a dedicated lighthouse.

Constant boat traffic is always under the watchful eye of the Polizia Locale.

Let's take a look at the church.

The choir was located behind the altar so that it was mostly hidden from the view of the congregation.  This was done so the choir voices were somewhat non-directional and therefore sounded like they were coming from heaven.

There are paintings on either side of the altar.  Both were painted in the late 1500s by the Italian Renaissance artist Jacopo Tintoretto.

The Last Supper

The Fall and Gather of the Manna

This huge angel was installed on the top of the church.  It was hit by lightning and nearly destroyed. It was uninstalled and transported for repair by helicopter prompting many to state that they saw an angel flying near the church.

Once our tour was complete, we reboarded our transport boat for the ride over to the island of Murano. In 1291, Venice required all glassmakers to move from the city itself to the island of Murano as a means to prevent potential fires.  Murano has been a center of decorative glassmaking ever since.

Murano is host to many glassmaking companies where the art of making decorative glass is passed down from generation to generation.

We attended a demonstration where the glass master made a blown vase and then a solid horse.  The vase was a much more complicated process that involved multiple heating, blowing, and shaping steps.

After he completed the vase (I didn't get a photo as it was quickly placed into an oven for the long, slow cooling process), he switched techniques and made a hand-shaped solid glass horse that balanced on its tail and back two legs.

The process of going from a blob of molten glass to a beautifully crafted and perfectly balance glass horse took no more than 90-seconds to complete.  It was amazing to watch an artist like this work his magic.

Of course, our tour concluded with browsing time in the company store and purchasing anything that caught our fancy.

I had to include this for our friend, Jean, who has a thing for giraffes

Just to get a sense - this lovely chandelier was priced at the low-low clearance price of €15001 (euros) or approximately $16671 (US dollars) as of this writing - quality costs cash!

We browsed some much more reasonable glass shops on the island before our boat ride back to the terminal. 

I didn't talk about the terminal yesterday, so I'll mention it today.  This terminal was built at great expense for passenger ships a few years ago.  Now, Italy has decided not to let those passenger ships dock here, so it was all a huge waste of money.  It is a huge empty space with one thing in it - a security checkpoint that puts TSA to shame.  Every time we left Venice and before we could board our bus to go back to Fusina to board the Viking Star, we had to remove coats, belts, watches, empty pockets, and so on, and then go through a metal detector.  Of course, my titanium hip would set the machine off even if I was naked, so I enjoyed a thorough pat-down all three times through the terminal. It was lovely.  They probably should have had to buy me dinner and a movie first.

After returning and boarding our bus, we were never allowed to leave the terminal area until another security team did a full walk-around of the bus, looking over and under everywhere.  Then, they affixed some sort of sticker to the bus and we were on our way back to Fusina sporting that new decoration.  After the scenic 30-minute drive past the factories and garbage dump I mentioned yesterday, we were treated to yet another walk around, license plate recording, and sticker inspection before we were allowed to enter the Fusina port where the Star was waiting for us.

I realize that it is their country and they get to set the rules, but to this outsider, it appears that they do not want cruise visitors here and I for one will be happy to honor that.  Given the excellent time that we had in Croatia. we are happy to be leaving tonight and heading back to Croatia tomorrow.

 So, to sum up our two-day visit to Venice, it was enough for us.  The weather was the weather and that can't be changed.  The crazy rules, however, we can do without.  It doesn't mean that we didn't enjoy the visit.  We did.  We saw some nice places.  But, we don't have any desire to come back, especially by cruise ship.

While having a nice lunch on the ship, this guy kept making repeat landings on the water glasses just outside.

Perhaps this was just touch-and-go landing and takeoff practice as he was working on an upgraded pilot rating.

If you haven't noticed from the date of this blog (March 17), it is St. Patrick's Day and the food and beverage team here on the Viking Star certainly paid attention.

Another great spread in the World Cafe, thanks to Chef Thomas and the entire food and beverage team.

Given my late night last night, tonight won't be a repeat.  It will be an early night for us.  Tomorrow, we'll be in Zadar, Croatia, and have a walking tour of the city scheduled for 10am.  Yea, sleep!