This was going to be one of the
longest and most brutal days of the tour (the other would be our
departure day). Breakfast was at 4:45 am and we headed off to Venice
at about 5:30 am. We reached the Isla del Tronchetto at around 11 am
and were given bag lunches which reminded me of elementary school.
As the other buses showed up, we finally boarded a Vaporetto headed
for the Piazza San Marco after lining up in twos to board the boat.
The weather turned out to be pretty nice – very little rain and
about mid 70's F with a nice
breeze.
The vaporetto ride was only about 20
minutes and when we got to Venice, each bus met up with its own tour
guide and were given ear pieces and a receiver so we could hear what
our tour guide was saying.
Our tour guide led us down narrow streets
and pointed out interesting things along the way, took us over
bridges (“crossing the street”), walked us through the Basilica
di San Marco where the choir would be singing later. Surprisingly,
part of the piazza near the basilica was flooded as were some parts
inside the basilica but our tour guide pointed out that this happened
all the time.
Our last stop on our tour was at the
glass shop where we were taken in by bus and watched a bit of a
demonstration where a master glass blower made a couple of pieces to
us the technique used then we were taken into a show room where the
sales pitch was given. We didn't end up buying anything in the glass
shop but the pieces were beautiful and
very expensive.
We wandered back to the Piazza San
Marco and decided to have lunch at the Gran Caffe Chioggia right on
the Piazza. We had hideously expensive pizza, espresso,
ham/cheese sandwich, and ice cream sundae with limoncello – the total was over 70
Euros (10 Euros just for a small cup of espresso and 14 Euros for the
ice cream!). I figured about 30% of that bill was the food and the
rest was for the view/ambiance.
 |
| lemon gelato with limoncello |
Amina and I went to the nearby
gelato stand and I ordered a scoop of black cherry gelato. When he
handed it to me and I took a taste, I realized that he didn't give me
the right scoop so asked him for the cherry gelato instead. He took
my cone back and, to my utter amazement (and to the other customers
as well), he dumped the gelato (the one I had tasted) back into the
carton and plopped a scoop of cherry gelato on my cone instead. The
gelato at this stand was much more reasonable – 2 Euros for a
scoop.
We walked back to the Basilica while
finishing our gelato. The choir, as well as the choir parents, were
invited to enter through a back entrance but the other Ambassadors
were invited to get in the long line into the basilica to catch the
performance. Unfortunately, most of the other ambassadors got into
the basilica just at the tail end of the choir's performance.
This was one of the highlights of
the entire trip for
me. Seeing Amina and the
other choir members singing
in this beautiful, old, and famous basilica sent shivers up my back –
just considering what an honor it was for them to get to do this.
They only sang 2 songs (recorded sound only with my iPhone since cameras were not allowed in the basilica) – another
“sing and run” sort of deal – but the sound was amazing and the
OAM director had them pause and savor the moment, look around, and
realize what they were doing and where.
We had just a little bit more “free
time” so we walked out to the area with all the souvenir stands and
found our magnets and stickers. After lining up 2 by 2 again, we
made our way back to the Vaporettos (crossing over a couple of
bridges – I didn't remember having walked out this far from where
we first arrived), and we were whisked back to the Isla
del Tronchetto where our
buses were waiting for us.
We arrived back in Seefeld around 10:30
pm where a nice local couple named Maria and Martin opened their brat
stand just for the OAM returning from Venice. It was a great bedtime
snack since we hadn't had any dinner since leaving Venice. Even as I
was done with my brat and falling asleep, I could still hear the kids
who were still waiting in line getting their bratwurst.
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