Day 4 Rome and Venice: August 10

Sunday morning we took the subway to get to church. We saw advertisements for The Chosen series in English and Italian in the subway station.

We also saw signs announcing the year of Jubilee.

We attended the Roma 1st ward. Several sets of missionaries met us at the door and one of them took our photo. We met an American couple, the Olivers, who recently retired and moved to Italy. Brandan had met Brother Oliver earlier in the week at the temple, which made Rome feel a little smaller and friendlier. The ward provided headsets for us and one of the missionaries translated sacrament meeting into English. We felt very welcome and appreciated the opportunity to take the sacrament.

After church we took the subway to the train station where we took a train to Venice. The train station was very busy.

The train ride took about 4 hours. Becky used the time to write postcards and read. Brandan joined his regular Sunday meeting with the stake presidency using the train's wi-fi and his laptop.

This was our first view of Venice as we walked out of the train station, The Grand Canal runs right in front of the station.

We took a water bus called a vaporetto to our hotel. The boats on the canal drive very slowly, about 3-4 miles per hour, as the buildings in Venice are right next to the canal. A big wave from the wake of a boat could slosh into someone's house or hotel. The slow speeds allowed us to soak in all of the unfamiliar sights around us.

With only a few exceptions, the streets in Venice are very narrow. There are no cars in Venice. Everything in the city arrives by water or is brought in on hand trucks. Or in our case, by foot.

This is our charming hotel near the Piazza San Marco. We dropped our suitcases in our room and eagerly headed out to explore the city.

It's impossible to exaggerate how beautiful the city is or how magical the canals feel.

This is a map of Venice. It comprises 121 islands connected by 435 bridges. The Grand Canal is the backward S in the middle of the city. Smaller canals criss cross the rest of the city. Piazza San Marco is shown on the map by the largest white space at the bottom edge of the big clump of islands. Most of the city is packed with buildings interspersed with smaller plazas. The city is very walkable. 

This is a view of the Grand Canal with the Doge's Palace in the background. 

This is a closer look at the palace which borders one side of the Piazza San Marco.. The column in front of the palace is topped with a winged lion, the symbol of St. Mark (San Marco) and of Venice.

The two red columns along the facade indicate where the doge stood for official proclamations.

The fantastical fairy tale of a church called the Basilica di San Marco is next to the Doge's Palace.  

St. Mark's clock tower is on the north side of the piazza. The clock was completed in 1499 and is a successful effort to show off Venice's wealth and power, from its rich decorations of gold and lapis lazuli enamel to its impressive mechanical features. The bottom two stories (not in the photo) are an arch that leads to Venice's main street (still narrow). The next level has a dial that shows 24 hour time on the white stone and the current astrological sign on the blue dial. The level above that has a statue of Mary with baby Jesus flanked by the time in hours (Roman numerals) and minutes (standard numbers). The minutes change every 5 minutes. Twice a year, figures of the three wisemen come out of the doors that the hour and minutes are displayed on and circle the balcony. We weren't in town on the right days to see the wise men. The level above Mary has an image of St. Mark's lion. Finally (also not in the photo) there is a bell on top with two giant bronze men who hit the bell with hammers to make the bell ring on the hours. We watched the bell tower for several minutes so we could see the time on the minutes switch.

We ducked through the arch to look for a small memorial we had heard about before we came. Sure enough, there was a small relief sculpture of an old woman dropping a mortar out of the window. Her name is Giustina Rossi and she foiled a coup attempt on the republican government of Venice in 1310 by dropping her mortar on the rebels' standard bearer. The mortar killed him and the rebels panicked and scattered. Giustina only asked for two rewards: for her rent to not increase and for the privilege of flying St. Mark's banner from her window on feast days. 

We went to bed excited for the adventures ahead of us the next morning in Venice.