San Giorgio and La Giudecca

\/\/\/\/\/\/Basilica di San Giorgio\/\/\/\/\/

\/\/\/\/\/\/Isola di San Giorgio from San Marco\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/near the Canal Grande\/\/\/\/\/

I had a whole trip planned for Saturday but I slept late so I have to do it next week. What I did instead was grocery shop and roam around. I was in search of a particular restaurant that I read about in Let’s Go Europe on a Budget. I couldn’t find it because on the map in the book it is improperly identified. I later found it on the map according to the directions that the book gives and it is nowhere near where they have it on the map. The book contradicts itself. Anyway the roaming was successful because by the end of the day I found a wine shop that a friend had told me about. This man makes his own wine, about 20 different kinds, red and white, and then sells them in his store. When you tell him what kind of wine you want he just fills up an empty water bottle from the barrel of the wine you selected. It is dirt cheap and really good. Less that 3 euros for 1.5 liters.

This morning, Sunday February 10, I went to mass at the Basilica di San Marco. I was told, and then saw for myself, that the best way to see the incredible churches is to go to Sunday mass. You can sit down and look at everything, you can hear the organ and/or choir (if there is one), and there is no rush because a service takes at least an hour. As you can imagine, the church was beautiful. The entire ceiling and top portion of the walls is mosaics all with a background of solid gold tiles. The whole time I was hoping that one little gold tile would fall off the ceiling into my hands. Then I had to contemplate if I would pawn it for cash or keep it as a memento. I determined that I would need to take into consideration its cash value in order to make the best decision. The organ and choir were very nice to hear and will probably draw me back for another service. There were a lot of priests but only three of them handed out the body of Christ for communion. One of these guys had to be AT LEAST 300 years old. He couldn’t walk down the steps from the altar on his own and you could see his entire body struggling every time he had to lift one single communion wafer. Anyway, there is a concert tonight at the basilica featuring the music of Johan Sebastian Bach. Bach for short I think. I am planning on attending. Between the mass and now, I did a little sightseeing. Unfortunately it was cold out with a brutal wind. Such conditions are not ideal. I figured that I should tackle the city by area and see all the sights of one area at a time. *** Venice proper is made up of six sestieri or sections, San Marco, Castello, Cannaregio, San Polo, Santa Croce (where I live), and Dorsoduro. But the lagoon is filled with many more islands, for instance Murano and The Lido, that make up the total 118 that compose Venice.*** Today I visited the island of San Giorgio and the honorary seventh sestieri, La Giudecca. Isola di San Giorgio is home to the church of San Giorgio Maggiore and the accompanying Benedictine monastery, established year 982, and learning center. The church is one of Venice’s most recognizable landmarks. (The islands I visited today have extensive and interesting histories/futures of which I will highlight some of the things I found interesting.) In 1800, Isola di San Giorgio hosted the conclave that elected Pope Pius VII, after the cardinals had been expelled from Rome by Napoleon. The church houses one of Tintoretto’s Last Supper’s. Venice is home to seven painting by the artist on this subject alone. The church also has a bell tower from which it is said one can view the city best. On the top of the bell tower, or belfry, used to stand a huge statue of an angel. The statue was struck by lightning in 1993 and now lives inside the church. ***Because of Venice’s imminent demise due to abuse by tourists and the money hording people who cater to them, as well as the incident involving this statue, since 1993 Venice has often been referred to as the City of Falling Angels. Other than global warming, one of the factors that contributes most to the sinking of Venice is the huge, deep and vast dredging of the lagoon that was done to allow large ocean liners to sail there. These have destroyed the natural salt marshes and sea beds of the area and cause sea water to flow into the lagoon in amounts higher than the city can handle.*** La Giudecca was also a very interesting island. One possible origin of the islands name is that it used to be a place of exile for people who had been judged. Those people were called giudicati. Michelangelo moped around on this island when he was banished from Florence. Shaped like a gondola, it has a MUCH more modern feel than almost anywhere else in Venice. Although it is also home to grandiose pallazzi of for instance Elton John and Giorgio Armani, many of the old factories and storehouses that used to operate on this island have been turned into modern hotels and housing. There isn’t a huge amount of stuff to see on the island other than two churches that I visited and a few other interesting places… but I wanted to start of easy which is why I chose to visit La Giudecca and San Giorgio.

i really want to keep the photos on my blog but it takes soo long that my battery is almost dead. i will upload more tomorrow...