Venice - 10/10/13

Today we decided to see Venice's Jewish Quarter, the original "ghetto." The word referred to a foundry where slag was stored. We walked from the ship to the main cruise terminal. There we got on the People Mover.  It didn't have an Italian name, just "People Mover." It was an elevated train that goes between the port and Piazzale Roma, the central train station. 

From Piazzale Roma we walked across a beautiful new pedestrian bridge called Ponte della Constituzione into the Cannaregio district of Venice. This district is just as bustling as the Rialto area we visited yesterday. There are stores and kiosks and everywhere you look there is irresistible street food: gelato, cookies, cannolis, torrone, paninis, wraps, pizza . . . and did I mention gelato? It's worth another mention - all the mouth watering colors and flavors. 

I tried not to notice, but it was hard not to notice, that just about every little food shop sold bags of pasta shaped like penises. That's all I have to say on that subject.

We enjoyed wandering around and looking at all the food, Murano glass, t-shirts, scarves, purses, and other touristiana. (Uh oh, spell checker didn't like that last word.) 

 





















We wandered into the ghetto and saw a few kosher restaurants and lots of Jewish tourists. Even though I had printed out a walking tour of the ghetto, it was hard to find the points of interest on the tour.  We looped around past a couple of old synagogues and came back to the busy Cannaregio neighborhood. 

The well in the Ghetto

We were able to pick up all of the items on our shopping list: 2 bottles of Bellini, a bar of soap, 5 post cards, a souvenir magnet and a gift for someone special. No pasta.

We stopped for some spinach and ricotta pizza and then we returned to the ship by the same route. We continued our exploration of the ship by visiting the gelato bar. You can get 3 scoops in a cool dish with 3 sections or you can pick a sundae from a list of appealing options. While we were sitting in the gelato bar there was a medical emergency in the atrium. The piano player stopped playing out of respect for the person, who appeared to have fallen and gotten a bloody nose. Two officers in white uniforms came. The doctor? Then an EMT wearing a backpack arrived, pushing a wheel chair. Soon everything was back to normal and the piano player resumed. Glad to know that emergencies can be handled. It turns out that the low platform where the piano is located is a tripping hazard.

As the ship sailed away from Venice we had a spectacular view from our balcony. We were higher up than most of Venice. The Venetians are talking about not allowing cruise ships to do this in the future.

Zattere, our "bus stop" when going between the Stucky and the Dorsoduro district

The "Leaning Tower of Venice"

St. Mark's campanile and the Doge's Palace

Arrivederci, Venice!

After a pleasant dinner with some friends from a previous cruise, we went to the Welcome Aboard show. It was pretty boring, but we stayed because they promised there would be a comedian. The cruise director is a British woman and her style is so bland and insincere, it is hard to take. After sitting through her spiel about how wonderful the cruise was going to be, we finally got to see the comedian. NOT worth the wait. First he said we hadn't applauded enough and he was going to go out and come back in and give us another chance to applaud harder. He eventually did after futzing around for a bit first. I am not inclined to applaud heartily when someone I never heard of comes out on stage. And I am really disinclined to applaud when I have been chastised by someone who hasn't done anything entertaining yet. But most of the audience went along and applauded.

His first set of jokes were delivered in a scream. They were incomprehensible. Maybe the Brits in the audience got his jokes, but nobody else did. After about 5 minutes we left, and several others had the same idea.