We managed to walk for about an hour from the train station to our hotel near San Marco piazza without too much of a problem because we carried day packs only. If you have been to Venice, you would likely agree with me that it was not easy to find ways. I had to rely on my compass and the city map from the tourist office at the train station where only main streets had names. Whenever I was not certain, I asked old lady for direction. If the alley way in my birthplace Jakarta is small, some of the streets for pedestrian in Venice are even smaller. That city was built by joining 117 little islands and only through walking would you be able to experience its uniqueness.
After walking for quite some time and hearing complaints from my partner :-) because I walked too fast, we were happy to find our hotel, Noemi. We secured a room there with the help of Father Kusmaryanto after he called the camping place we intended to stay. It was far from Venice, about 1.5 hour by boat and then taxi. The last word scared us :-). So Father Kus called a couple or so hotel and found that Noemi only charged 73 Euro. We were speechless and couldn't argue with the guy at the reception desk when he told us the rate was 87 Euro. He shook his head when we mentioned that our friend reserved the room with the lower rate. Not to spoil our trip nor tarnished the image of Canadian :-) we asked if we could stay for 2 nights since we only reserved it for 1 night. No vacancy. When we started to go out and found a 3-star hotel next door, Best Western, we came in. "Do you have a vacant double room for tomorrow night?," I asked the guy. "Yes." "How much is the rate?" "Two hundred fifty Euros." I felt much better after saying thank you very much, staying at Hotel Noemi :-).
We strolled along San Marco piazza and did some window shopping, admiring the beautiful work of art in Venetian glasses. The romanticness of Venice started in that piazza where we could listen to couple bands playing romantic music. It was so powerful that we could see two guys kissing and caressing one another when we took our 'boat tour' in what is called vaporetto, public boat. That was how we did our main sightseeing, using the boat to check the island city of Venice. As happened in Milan, the mayor of Venice must know that we were celebrating our anniversary. In the evening, we had another free choral performances in 'Festa di Primavera 2002', that was held not too far from San Marco. It was the grand final of a singing competition of the best Italian singers in Venice and nearby.
Let's skip the rest of the night story after we returned from the show and the planet Jupiter in the Gemini constellation above us told your Gemini boy to not forget that Venice means romance :-). Let's fast forward to the morning of May 13 in Venice. After a do-it-yourself breakfast in the hotel, we were on our way to catch the vaporetto to Murano island. It is the island where the famous Venetian glasses are manufactured or rather are designed and created. A nice looking gentleman approached us and introduced himself as a representative from Murano tourist office. What a coincidence, I said to myself, this guy knew where we were heading. He told us that only twice a week, the Murano promotion office offered free personal trip to visitor interested in seeing how Venetian glasses are made. We jumped at the opportunity and he escorted us to a motorboat (that could accomodate 10 passengers or so). We hopped into the motorboat and off we went to Murano island. As the boat was quite small compared to a vaporetto (that could accomodate 100 passengers) he took a short-cut going inside the city or the small canals because Murano island was on the other side. Again, I wished I could paddle a canoe through those canals :-). Only after the boat docked in one of the Venetian glass companies entrance did we realize we had been had :-). To cut the story short, it was not too bad though. We had a private demo on how one made the various glasses. We checked the store wares and just exclaimed 'beautiful' from time to time to appreciate our host generosity :-). Yes, the cheapest item was in the hundred of Euros, the beauties would wipe our budget :-). We were glad when the company guy showed us the door to the street. Didn't I tell you earlier, Italian are friendly people?
After visiting that pricey company store, prices of a few items at ordinary stores in the island looked so cheap that my wife went for a shopping spree thereafter. Perhaps that guy at San Marco piazza was genuinely from Murano tourist office :-). Since we were not able to stay for another night in Venice, we got ourselves ready in the afternoon for the night train to Vienna. We intentionally didn't reserve a sleeping couchette in the train and took a calculated risk. We will share with you what happened on that night train in the next episode. Take care, bye for now.
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If you visited devout Christians' homes in Jakarta, among all the 'dust catchers', you will likely find the painting I told you earlier. BTW, I just learned about that new term 'dust catcher' from our host H in Zurich. He was right, all the ornaments that we put up at home, are basically meant to catch dust, especially if you visit my home :-). It was quite easy for us, besides we have Fr. Kus who can swear in Italian :-), to find Il Cenacolo Vinciano. Indeed it was nothing but a dining room, next to the church called Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Grazie, Our Lady of Grace said the English people. The Dominican friars who (till this day) administered the church lived next door. At one time, they commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to paint a wall in that dining room so that the friars won't get bored just seeing their colleagues while eating the bland food :-). Centuries of damage from all kind of perils, floods, bombing and likely the smoke from the kitchen next door caused that famous painting, The Last Supper, to be in poor quality. If you have one at your home you are better off adoring yours and you save a bundle of money :-). However, I am certain that if Fr. Kus becomes the Pope one day, he will surely tell the Dominicans to lower the entrance fee. Kidding aside, were it not for Fr. Kus's excellent salesmanship and charism, this story would not exist. It turned out that you need to reserve the ticket several days before you can get in to Il Cenacolo. The Japanese tourists must have caused it :-). When we were at the ticket counter, we were told that tickets were sold out. Starting with 'buon giorno' Fr. Kus convinced the lady in (must be) perfect Italian that his two Canadian friends had come all the way just to see The Last Supper and would be leaving tomorrow, something like that :-). Having an Italian compassion, the lady squeezed in the three of us into a group that had just entered the vestibule to the room.
To compensate our pocket book after spending 29 Euro just to see a faded painting on a wall, we went to a castle museum that was once a fortress, Castello Sforzesco. The most important, this museum was free :-). However, after our kids did not like to go with us anymore to the museum, I also am not that enthusiastic about it. It is not interesting to explain things to Cecilia :-), playing Scrabble with her is more exciting. We spent the rest of the afternoon of May 11 with Fr. Kus, sightseeing from the trams. We saw Father to the train station because he has to get back to his study in Rome. His calling is not to be a tour guide :-).
We were fortunate again in the evening. After attending the Vigil Mass at the Duomo, we came back in the evening to enjoy a special concert performed by Orchestra Sinfonica Academia Concertante d'Archi di Milano in honour of our wedding anniversary :-). It was of course a free concert and we were able to get good seats in that lovely catedral. I think the stained-glass in Duomo is one of the most beautiful in the world. Two pieces were performed by that Milan Symphony Orchestra, Dvorak's Symphony IX, Dal Nuovo Mondo, there is a new world, said my friends from Marriage Encounter :-). The last piece was Haydn's Mass (Messa in Augustiis) complete with the sopran, alto, tenor and bass singers. Dona nobis pacem was the last song and indeed we felt so peaceful when we had to leave the Duomo that night and went back to our Albergo Italia.
As I said earlier, I love Milan and our experiences in that fashion city of Italy. The Italian people are like Indonesian, very friendly. I once said, you can tell Indonesian or Italian coming or leaving at Toronto Pearson International Airport just by looking at how many people greet or send them away. Since we were going to another unique Italian city, Venice, in the morning of May 12, we were as excited. I had anticipated our arrival into the Venice train station because S, my canoeing buddy and teacher told me about how wonderful was the scenery when she entered Venice in the morning and she could see the sea from her train. Perhaps we arrived too late in the morning or nearing noon. It was just a so-so view, nothing magical. Perhaps we have been married too long because indeed Venice is a romantic city. We left both our backpacks at the train station that cost 5 Euros per pack per 12 hours. We then walked for about an hour from the train station to our hotel near the San Marco piazza where the tourists from all over the world gathered.
In the next episode, I will share with you some more exciting things we experienced in Venice, including a private boat tour courtesy of Venice "tourist promotion" office to the famous island of Murano where they make the Venetian glasses :-). Stay tune, buon giorno or buena noce, ciao.
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