Our time in Sirmione has been spent taking it easy and keeping it simple. This is made even simpler by the fact that there’s not a whole lot to do here in the off-season. Hell, all the laundry’s done. I contemplated a drive around Lago di Garda or, better yet, a nautical adventure on one of the ferries that ply the waters, but I can’t make any sense out of all the disparate sets of information. If I stare at schedules long enough something will be revealed. The figures coalesced and I got it, finally. We are booked on the 11:40 boat from Sirmione to Garda, roundtrip.

An hour and ten minutes up the Lago, we debark at Garda onto a bright and café-filled promenade. We stroll the length and back, assessing the lunch potential. Under some shade trees, we proceed to order two pizzas and bat the usual chatter back and forth. Gradually, a monologue swells from behind Joss. A German lady has A LOT of important shit to say to her mute companion. Nary a pause for breath or punctuation. At our feet a flock of mallards cruises the pavement for crumbs. Not birds, again. As we gnaw on the penultimate crusts, a woman takes the table next to us and begins to mutter in Italian. She gets up and sits back down, settles in. She is brought the bread basket and begins to toss bits at the ducks, except she’s sprinkling gluten on my bag of ferry schedules. Oh, jesus, let’s go shop. Joss buys a sweater that bears a ‘Mood in Italy’ tag.

Our ride back to Sirmione takes just 50 minutes because hydrofoil. From the railing, the Roman villa’s site is even more impressive. We’re pretty relaxed, goddammit. There’ll be five one-night stands from now until we are get to Vicenza and Padua for four nights.

Because of our profound lack of agita, we are awarded our best meal so far, at Osteria al Torcol.

Joss took the morning’s first shower and reports that we have a psychedelic showerhead: it has LED lights that cycle through blue, green, and purple, tinting your lather while contributing nothing to your spirits. Far out, Italia! But, hey, let’s do more laundry! We know now that a complete cycle will take about four hours, so we can establish a leisurely pace today, beginning by dealing with semi-homemade breakfast of nasty croissant and joe from a machine.

Sirmione’s strategic position meant it controlled Lago di Garda, the largest in Italy and a major transalpine trade and military route. In the 13^th century, the Scaligeris began construction of a fortress to protect the peninsula and lake and therefore, the Veneto, their investment. And this is exactly what a small fortress should look like, crenellated walls and towers and a moat, as well as a protected harbor. We cross the moat, circle the battlements, and climb the main tower for views of the town, the vast lake, and the mountains beyond the far shore.

Our custom has become ordering a pair of pizzas for lunch and share halfsies. Kinda struck out today – very blobular disks, these. Way too much fucking cheese. I doubt this outcome will alter our pie habit. After cheese-a-rama, we stroll out to the tip of the peninsula, where the ruins of an enormous Roman villa lie. For centuries, it has been called the Grottos of Catullus, for no other reason then the poet described a home in Sirmione. The villa’s a complete ruin, foundation walls almost exclusively. It is situated on a bluff that rises a hundred feet above the lake and commands attention even under these much reduced circumstances. A grove of olive trees the size of a football field covers the central open area. Along the length of the structure runs what was a wide basement corridor called a ‘cryptoporticus’, now the favorite word of day. The villa possesses a spectacular vista, while below is a ‘beach’ called Jamaica Beach.

We wend our way down. It’s not a sandy beach, but yards and yards of flat, worn limestone, populated by isolated groups of people. No one is swimming; the lake must be getting chilly. After all, it’s all Alpine runoff. We follow the beach around the bluff all the way back to place where we first had lunch.

It had to happen. The BAD MEAL. I noodled online and trusted the significant props the place got from TripAdvisor. No names will be mentioned nor food details summarized. Pfeh. I hope we don’t wake up puking.

Let’s go! Because, on Wednesday’s triumphal entry into Verona, we abandoned our VW in the far away Arena parcheggio, we will schlep our worldlies to the car, drop ‘em, and then pay a visit to the nearby Arena, which we have not seen except from the outside. Ever-practical, we hail a cab. The arena is colossal, stupendous, built in Century One. It takes reminding that it is a building and not a geological feature. Joss and I wander among the tiers, marveling at the bizarre setup underway below. What is Andrea Bocelli up to? A thirty-foot stark white head looms from the back of what I suppose to be the stage and in the ‘infield’, a vast area of white plastic has been unfurled. SuperTarp! What THE FUCK is Andrea Bocelli up to? It turns out this will be a performance of Andrea Bocelli – ON ICE! We fucking missed it. My most grievous regret.

Joss, the navigatore esperto, guides us to Sirmione, an ancient town at the tip of a skinny peninsula that juts into southern Lago di Garda. A police pass is required to enter Sirmione. Automobile traffic is restricted, due to the narrow, medieval thoroughfares and a clusterfuck of heedless pedestrians/tourists wielding lopsided cones of drippy gelato. Quickly, Joss becomes way unhappy. I stop the car. We breathe. After a couple dead ends, loop-de-loops, and hysterical backings-up, we finally arrive at our one-bedroom-with-a-lake-view-terrace B&B. And a miracle unfolds.

The apartment has a washing machine. We throw in a load of darks, wait for what we assume is enough time for a thorough cycle, then stop waiting and drift down to the Lake to find a salad, returning to the sound of continuing tumbling, and not even the goddamn spin cycle. We made a bet and Joss wins a gelato. She rejiggers the machine and we walk into Sirmione, past Maria Callas’ villa, to find some milk for morning tea (and some cookies), only to return to continued washing. Six hours later, clean clothes. With joy in our hearts, we drape the hyper-clean items on a drying rack on the terrace.

The next couple days in Sirmione will offer us a respite from our heady pace. We just won’t move the fucking car until we leave. The crowds seem to be mostly Italians taken advantage of a beautiful weekend and the end of tourist season. A dog has been barking outside our door off and on all day. On top of that, those much-desired cookies turn out to be BAD! Yummy-looking sandwich-type confections in lemon and chocolate with booze-drenched filling. Pfeh.

As we depart to find dinner on the streets, a nonna and that yipster pet tussle in the hall. She can’t control the thing, which takes out its pique on my ankle. Ow. We scram. Later, because of repetitive nonna hollering, we learn the dog’s name is Eric.

Today, we cross the river via the New Bridge (built in 1540) to visit the Teatro Romano, built in the 1^st century. Temporary seating is being installed for an upcoming performance. The view over the Adige to old Verona is lovely, but the river makes quite a racket. On a bluff above the theater is the Museo Archeologico, accessible by a ‘Man from Uncle’ style elevator built into the cliff. There are some intriguing items, but mostly architectural fragments. It used to be a monastery; some of the monk’s cells have spectacular views of the tile roofs and campaniles of the city, in other words – the World.

I would like to go to Santa Maria in (the) Organo, known for its outstanding wood inlays. Joss is a tad reluctant, but it’s not far. Turns out, it’s an operational church, so parishioners ask for a donation and offer guidance/supervision. I drop five euros in a box and poke around, but Joss hangs back. The inlays in the sacristy and choir stalls feature highly articulated birds, fantastical landscapes, biblical parables, and still lifes. Also of interest is a nearly life-size wooden statue of an amused Christ astride a donkey meant to be carried through the streets during Lenten processions.

Nearby is the real goal of the day’s peregrination – Giardino Giusti. These Italian Renaissance gardens were planted in 1580 and are regarded as some of the most beautiful Renaissance gardens in Europe, a splendid park of parterres mounting up a steep slope. Goethe mentions them in his Italian Journey (1786-88), published 200 years ago. One cypress near the entrance is honored as have been seen and noted by the great German. At present, the tree’s some 600 years old. Joss and I trace the central allée and climb up the hill, through a groomed forest with half-hidden follies. The vistas of the garden and Verona beyond are breathtaking. Suddenly, church bells ring twelve noon not in unison. As we zigzag down again, we’re met by the squeals and hollers of unrestrained children loose in the hedge maze. Little bastards.

We wander back in the general direction of Piazza Erbe and Gabbia d’Oro. Many windows are shopped, though our progress halts but once for the purchase a cool unit for Alice. We linger in the courtyards of the Palace of Reason (the Law Courts), right off Piazza Erbe. One features a very large statue of Dante, a sometime Veronese. Some post-hoof gelato at Pretto, then a late afternoon fade. Rather than tempt fate, the mutual decision is to go back to Ristorante Greppia. Good choice. Good night.

It turns out Gabbia d’Oro means Gilded Cage. I get the décor now. Copious is the breakfast spread. It includes several forms of chocolate and honey straight from the comb. Among the many frutta arrayed are slices of a most delicious melon like a slightly subdued cantaloupe, which, with a generous slice of prosciutto, contributes to the wellbeing of the universe. Scanning the joint, our auditory faculties reveal that we are the only Americans. Good.

The revolutionary itinerary for today begins at the Castelvecchio, Verona’s medieval fortress built by the ruling Scaligeri family in the 14^th century. The Castelvecchio is now the repository for ecclesiastic art from ancient local churches unable to care for their treasures. Chronologically, we meander halls beginning with solemn medieval statuary and ending with dark mannerist agonies. Our path sometimes leads out of doors around battlements and through the keep. One side of the castle abuts the river and from there we get a good look at the bridge the Scaligeris built at the same time. The retreating Germans blew it up in 1945, but the enterprising Veronese recovered the brick and stones from the river and rebuilt it.

Verona was a perfectly situated medieval city – the Adige River on three sides and on the fourth, a wall extending from river to river. The Scaligeris were swaggerers way ahead of their time, giving their progeny proto-hip hop first names like Cangrande (Big Dog) and Mastino (Pit Bull). For several hundred years, Verona maintained a fierce independence, only to succumb to inevitable Venetian dominance.

After a short long walk, we arrive in the Piazza San Zeno. The Basilica of San Zeno may be considered a minor one Catholicism-wise, but the church itself is an utterly glorious structure. The façade of pale golden stone includes one of the earliest examples of a rose window in Western architecture. St. Zeno was a local guy martyred in the fourth century; this church of his was begun in the 10^th century and completed in the 12^th. Its remarkable features include a ship’s keel ceiling, really two wooden hemispheres, a lower one split at the apex and flanking an identically proportioned one inserted above, a vivid altarpiece by Mantegna, and a set of monumental bronze doors with 48 panels of great charm and emotion and varying decipherability. Oh God, Zeno himself is either lying in the crypt or in an urn somehow part of a sculptural diorama labeled as ‘Laughing San Zeno’. This is exhausting and fascinating.

We have worked up an appetite, yet mill around the piazza in a daze. “Over there, Joss,” and I point to a row of red tablecloths under a row of plane trees. We sit. The waiter recites the menu. Three kinds of lasagna are available. Joss orders the radicchio one and I pick the artichoke. They come and they are exquisite, just perfect in their savory modesty. We stroll back to the hotel along the river.

After a rest in Gabbia d’Oro, we attempt shopping. Joss can’t seem to psyche herself up to spend euros. I’m too dumpy these days for Italian cut clothes. Pfeh. We chance upon Juliet Capulet’s putative residence, which is a horrid tourist magnet slimed with sentimental graffiti. We are drawn and repelled in equal measure. But we learn that San Zeno’s crypt, legend has it, was the duo’s fatal rendezvous. Another discovery, right next to Gabbia d’Oro – Pretto, purveyors of the most excellent gelato. Coconut and coffee in a cone, per favore.

I pull a name out of a guidebook and motivate us to a noted restaurant.  We’re early and requested to return at 19:30. Wandering the neighborhood, we stumble upon the Scaligeri tombs, over-the-fucking-top confections of gothic nonsense, spotlit in the twilight. We are seated at the restaurant and throughout the experience, remain the sole diners, enjoying a semi-adequate meal.

This be our last breakfast not-on-the-terrace. Aquamare has been very hospitable and gracious. Packing is simple. On the Riva degli Schiavoni, we board the same slow vaporetto (#1) to the train station, a couple stops further than yesterday. A vision passes on the other side of the Grand Canal this time. Ca’ d’Oro is as delicate a palazzo as we were led to believe.

We navigate the rail ticket purchase okay, but the train car’s mystifying, what with different classes of ticketing , reserved seats, poor signage, and everything. . On platform #5 next to ours is the Orient Express, shiny dark blue antique-looking cars with berths and formal place settings on the tables in the dining car. We just plop our butts, but at the next stop, someone asks us to move. Joss finds us seats near where we’re supposed to be: someone’s in our seats. Oh, who the fuck cares. It’s only a half hour ride to Padua at 150mph, something we can’t seem to manage in the US.

Hertz is not easy to find and then they don’t have our reservation, because, evidently, I didn’t make one or didn’t follow through with a ‘confirm’. I don’t have any documentation on hand and no way to get online. I suffer a small, discreet meltdown. After much fumbling, we’re informed that a car will be available at 2:30. Big sigh. We spend two hours at a nearby café, the haven of bewildered Hertz customers. And at 2:30, when the place reopens after lunch, voila!, a VW. Joss and I are much relieved, but worn out by the agita and the wait.

Joss skillfully navigates us onto, then off, the Autostrada, but once in Verona, we are confounded. We can’t seem to get even within spitting distance of Hotel Gabbia d’Oro (the Golden Chatterbox?), because of a restricted traffic zone and pathos generale. Desperately, impulsively, we dump the VW in an underground parking lot called ‘Arena’ and head off on foot, dragging the rolly noise behind us. Yep, that’s Verona’s Roman arena to the right – home to much ancient blood spilling and tomorrow night, Andrea Bocelli! Grouchiness is bubbling to the surface again.

Sort of by chance and damp exasperation, we roll up to the vine-covered entry of the Hotel Gabbia d’Oro. The lobby is all red velvet plush, oriental carpets, and polished wood. Engravings and watercolors cover the walls, e.g. Airedales of the 20^th Century. There are hutches with odd silver pieces and fine porcelain and bowls of candy. Our rooms are on the fourth floor, under the eaves. The room keys feature a decorative iron key that must weigh as much as my suitcase. Joss takes the expansive ‘princess’ room, I the more modest ‘jester’ one. She is thrilled by the discovery of a tub and exploits it immediately.

There’s a decent restaurant nearby, I discover – Ristorante Greppia. We dine outdoors to our great satisfaction. On our way home, we pause for semi-adequate gelato, which is better than inadequate gelato or no fucking gelato at all.

A mid-morning vaporetto (#1) ride up the Grand Canal from San Marco; past the baroque extravagance of La Salute and Peggy’s collection and then under the Accademia bridge and, around the next turn, under the Rialto. Vessels of all sorts replicate of every kind of land-based activity you could imagine. Observing them as they weave in and out among one another is mesmerizing. Not a personal flotation device in sight. We stand by the port side railing, gazing as this vision of unspeakable loveliness drifts by. Our vaporetto stops at every local juncture, which makes the journey all the more fascinating because of the people watching.

“Jesus Fucking Christ,” I mutter and point to a passing barge. Joss chuckles. The barge is a floating advertisement for a brand of hotdog called – WUDY. Oh, the language of love.

Our destination is Venice’s Ghetto, a place of great historical and emotional resonance. It’s the oldest Jewish ghetto in the world, instituted by the Venetian Republic in the early 16^th century. Jews were confined to an island called ‘Ghetto’. Locked in at night, during the day they were free to move about the city, though always with some identifying mark, perhaps a yellow hat or shawl. The origin of the word ‘ghetto’ is disputed; most commonly, it is suggested to derive from ‘getto’, the Venetian word for ‘foundry’. It seems more likely to me that ‘ghetto’ is abbreviation of ‘borghetto’, or ‘little neighborhood’.

We cross one of the Ghetto’s two bridges and step into the main square, the community being encircled by canals. The entrance to the museum is a modern gray one-story addition to the front of an otherwise nondescript building. Security. We thrust our bags into the x-ray device and receive a wand-down and couple of pats. The tour begins in fifteen minutes, so we hurry through some exhibits upstairs and proceed to wait.

There are five synagogues in the Ghetto, three in the New Ghetto (which is actually the old ghetto) and two in the Old Ghetto (yeah, the new one). We are shown the German or Ashkenazi Synagogue, the first built in the early 17^th century, and the Spanish/Portuguese Synagogue, built a hundred years later, and then, in the Old Ghetto, the Levantine synagogue. They have been restored and are quite evocative and beautiful. Restrictions required that the German synagogue be constructed wholly out of wood. These were relaxed over time and later ones had ornate, almost baroque, marble elements.

When Napoleon conquered Venice in 1797, he did away with the restrictions on the Jews and they began to disperse throughout the city. During the Second World War, two hundred Jews from the Ghetto were taken to the camps by the Germans. Eight returned. Venice’s Jewish population considers this the center of Jewish life. The two synagogues in the Old Ghetto still hold regular services, while the others do on the High Holy Days.

Joss’ precision guidance is confounded by the crypto-grid of Canareggio’s canals and byways. Finding the Church of the Madonna dell’Orto involves first being drawn to the vaporetto stop of that name. The church is unremarkable, famous mostly for the Madonna and Child painted in 1480 by Giovanni Bellini and stolen in 1993 and for being the final resting place of Tintoretto.

We could use a resting place ourselves at this point. Our fitful efforts to locate a suitable lunch venue finally bear fruit and we land at an outdoor café. Two pizzas are ordered for sharing purposes. As the meal progresses, a plague of aggressive asshole pigeons completely freaks the couple eating next to us and after they flee, the birds start hopping on the backs of unoccupied chairs and scuttling under the table in an attempt to get us to abandon our meal. Fuck you, lizard brains. Joss finishes her last slice and places the crust on the tray when a ballsy bird jumps on the table. We leap up. Outta there.

Finding the Ca’ d’Oro (the House of Gold) requires maybe five minutes. We don’t fall for the ol’ vaporetto stop trick this time. The Ca’ d’Oro was built around 1430 and after centuries of use and misuse, was purchased by Baron Franchetti at the end of the 19^th century expressly to restore it to its former glory. Its façade facing the Grand Canal may be the most beautiful of all the palazzos facing it. Our next ride up the Grand Canal (tomorrow on the way to the train station), we will get to savor the façade. We find ourselves inside, in the entrance hall that opens through a loggia to the Canal itself. The floor is covered with intricate geometrically inlayed marble. The galleries with the Baron’s art collection begin on the piano nobile (the 2^nd floor).

Our final stop in Canareggio is Santa Maria dei Miracoli. This small church is unremarkable in every aspect save for its exquisite beauty. Clad in marble of various pale shades and roofed with a barrel vault, it is truly breathtaking. Here is where George Clooney should have gotten married.

We’re pretty footsore, yet efficiently hoof it back to the digs using our internal GPS. Our last night, we have reservations at a Michelin-starred restaurant, Il Ridotto, very near Aquamare. We both get the meat and fish tasting menu. It is fun being treated to cuisine, though the final dessert course is unsettlingly medicinal.

Good Day! Sunshine! At Fondamente Nove, we board Vaporetto 12 for Murano, Burano, and Torcello, daytrippers on the blue-green lagoon. We glide past Isola di San Michele, the cemetery of Venice, where apparently your entombment will only last for a decade unless you’re Ezra Pound or Igor Stravinsky. We disembark in Murano, the famous island of glassblowing. Venice ‘exiled’ the industry in 13^th century because of the risk of fire and it became a world-renowned industry. Its buildings are only two stories high, and the thoroughfares wide, so much more sky intrudes. Countless shops feature the same touristic shit. Scoff as we might, to our surprise we find Xmas gifts for both Kif and Alice.

We reconnoiter the island pretty quickly, where the glass museum is and where the recommended lunch place is. The Museo del Vetro covers the history of western glassmaking in general and Murano’s contribution specifically. Videos of the techniques are mesmerizing. Some examples of glasswork really capture the imagination, but quite a bit is just gaudy or clunky or both.

At this point, we’re running on breakfast fumes. In a square or ‘campo’ featuring a lame Chihuly ripoff of Lame Chihuly, is the Busa Alla Torre Da Lele, an outdoor café under yellow umbrellas. We snag a table after replenishing our cash situation. Both of us, hankering for clams, order Spaghetti alla Telline, assuming telline to be basically vongole except from the lagoon. Clam Surprise! Telline are micro-clams the size of your thumbnail. This presents a challenge we meet without comment. Delicious. I snap a shot of the pile of shells.

Slowly, we stroll back to the vaporetto stop for transport to Burano and Torcello. The boat goes to Torcello first. We disembark and wander up a brick fondamente of small canal with fields on either side. Torcello is home to the oldest church on the Lagoon, a Byzantine structure begun in the 9^th century and completed in the 11^th. It has a striking mosaic that covers the west wall – the Harrowing of Hell and the Last Judgment. Nothing murky here like so many frescos and paintings; the colors and imagery are bold, insistent. You are fucking damned.

There are pieces of random stonework in the yard in front of the church/basilica. Most prominent is a chair reputed to the ‘Throne of Attila’ – real or just a fucking photo op. We take turns, trying to conjure up the ‘Hun’ vibe to no avail. We have the documentation. Be aware of the upcoming Attila Off. Who is most likely to storm the gates of Constantinople?

Back at Aquamare, a little downtime, then dinner in the neighborhood. I’m determined to find the mysterious gelato and we do. We also locate the costume shop that designs for theater. Joss buys a mask that adheres to your face by way of the device you hold in your teeth. The gelatoria, La Mela Verde, has exotic flavors. I try pine nut, while Joss sticks with hazelnut.

Another not-on-the-terrace breakfast at Aquamare: this time due to foreboding cloud cover. We had planned a trip to the islands today – Murano, Burano, and Torcello – but I’m discouraged by the weather. It should always be sunny when one crosses a lagoon. So, I say to Joss – Let’s stay inside-ish and hoof it to some semi-faraway museums, over the Rialto Bridge and deep in San Polo e Santa Croce. I’ll bring my umbrella. We’re underway by 10am. Threading our way through alleys clotted with distracted folk, we cross over the bottleneck of the Rialto again. The ‘sound’ of Venice is the wheels of the rolly suitcase on uneven pavement, just as the ‘smell’ of Venice is that oddly startling canal aroma. To stop on the Rialto for any reason is high foolishness. Aiming for the Frari and Titian’s famous Assumption of Mary altarpiece, we arrive to find services ongoing. Sunday, of course. Recalculate.

The Scuola Grande di San Rocco is ‘around the corner.’ As far as I can tell, a ‘scuola’ is a sort of local organization (of men) dedicated to charitable deeds in the name of St. Roch, an inspirational dude of his day. They are not only good-deed-doers, but enthusiastically aggrandizing in a spectacular way. The first floor of the scuola consists of a very large hall surrounded by very large Marian dramas. We ascend a grand double staircase. The most prosaic aspect about the hall on the second floor is the folding chairs set up for a concert or lecture. Wooden allegorical sculptures line the walls, setting off a series of balloon-like lamps, then up the walls and over the ceiling, acres of Tintorettos, basically the whole Bible. The renaissance at its most rococo. An unassuming door with the word ‘Tesoro’ above it leads us to San Rocco’s treasury. The weird stuff, mostly reliquaries, some containing thorns from Christ’s final headgear and others holding two or three finger joints from assorted saints. The single relatable thing is a beautiful candelabra constructed from pieces of coral joined together with gold. Fully saturated with godly geegaws, I follow Joss down the stairs, pausing for a moment to glance at some shiny thing, and when I look up, she’s gone. Disappeared. We spend the next twenty minutes not finding each other. Joss strides up and down the grand staircase a resentful number of times. I sit by the restroom, always the glum default location, then park my butt on a bench outside the front door. Joss and I find one another soon enough and recriminations evaporate.

Scavenging for lunch can be the most viable option while waiting for the church services to end. And they do. The Frari is magnificent, if a bit daunting, even after San Rocco’s scuola. Titian’s famous altarpiece, The Assumption of Mary is too far away to really appreciate, so we take its glory for granted. A divided u-shaped choir stall of exquisite proportions and workmanship embraces the Assumption. Canova’s striking pyramidal tomb is against a wall near the front, one of the most melancholy sculptures I’ve ever beheld. He originally designed it as a posthumous monument to Titian. It went unbuilt until his students raised the money after he died. It contains an urn with his heart: the rest of him is elsewhere.

The Palazzo Mocenigo purports to be a textile museum, but its current exhibit surveys the history of perfume, not exactly a topic of interest. Odor – pfeh! The rooms are sort of period and some of the details are interesting, but we don’t linger. Hey, look! Not far! A Natural History Museum! Dinosaurs in Venice! This turns out to be the most intriguing stop of the day. There are no English subtitles anywhere, which gives evolution an enigmatic Italian twist. The walk through earth’s earliest times is very contemporary, but we’re ultimately deposited among many cabinets of curiosities, all manner of preserved vertebrates and invertebrates. Particularly curious are the small sharks with mammalian eyes. One room features elaborate displays of taxidermy illuminated by a grand murano glass chandelier.

We spill onto the fondamenta in desperate need of gelato. Amazingly, one of Venice’s best, Alaska Gelatoria, is a short walk. We’re finished today.

Today, we have an 8:15am ticket to the Accademia, Venice’s Renaissance art museum. Can we rise to maybe the foothills of consciousness? Fuckin’ A. Piazza San Marco is deserted at that time of morning: even pigeons need a rest. Gone, too, are the nocturnal noodges who ceaselessly importune us with a rose or one of those illuminated heli-things that shoots high into the air and drifts down boringly. During the day they sell these balls of puke that reconstitute themselves into spheres after you hurl them onto a piece of cardboard. Like I’ve never been to Times Square.

I digress. We know the way to the Accademia, but we time it poorly and arrive too soon. Thus thwarted, we walk some more. The Lagoon is visible, barely two hundred feet off. We follow the fondamenta along the small canal. Suddenly, we turn to each other – “Whoa.” Passing in front of the entry to this canal is a giant cruise ship, not unlike a ten-story building floating on its side with a great blue ‘C’ on its yellow smokestack. “Gross. Really gross.” We turn away and across the water we spy a workyard with four or five gondoli (gondolas) in various states. Some very, very old frame buildings surround the yard and on one wall is a collection of straw gondolier hats. This, it turns out, is Squero di San Trovaso, a gondola maintenance shop, one of the last remaining.

The Accademia is open. It houses the world’s largest collection of Venetian art. Many many Jesuses and Biblical stories told frontwards and backwards. The highlight for us is a series of paintings, recently restored, by Heironymous Bosch. The man was so dark and funny. But not enough, really, to keep us Accademizing. We are beaten.

A short walk and a double espresso away is Peggy Guggenheim’s museum. She bought an unfinished palazzo on the Grand Canal in the late 40s and made it her home. Now it is home to her wonderful collection of 20th century art. Many (heretofore unseen by me) masterpieces to behold. Particularly fascinating was Picasso’s On the Beach, both eerie and lighthearted. What’s left of Peggy’s household furnishings includes a gorgeous silver filigreed headboard fashioned by Alexander Calder. Heeding the call to lunch, we partake of a very cosmopolitan salad in the courtyard café.

So, trailing a nimbus of sheepishness, Joss and I show up at the appointed time and place for the 12:45 tour of the ‘secret’ passages of the Doge’s Palace. Well, yeah, not so much ‘secret’, as not trod by the usual hordes. We mount narrow stone stairs to a series of rooms under the eaves that served as the bureaucrats’ offices, the state archives, and special prison cells that housed, for instance, Casanova. Also, the torture chamber. Our guide then squired us through the Basilica San Marco. We gape at the brilliant mosaic glory above. Particularly eye-catching was the right hand lunette on the church’s façade that depicts the escapade by which two enterprising Venetians stole the remains of St. Mark the Evangelist from the Muslims of Alexandria in order to present Venice with a patron saint worthy of its ambition. They packed Mark’s old bones in a wicker basket and then covered them with pork. What? Another dramatic mosaic involved the Genesis stories of Creation and Adam & Eve swirling inside a small dome in the narthex, much like panels in a comic. It’s still a bum’s rush through the church, no loitering, fifteen minutes and you’re out, unless, of course, you pony up another five euro to climb a steep flight to see the original Greek horses that overlooked the piazza (replaced now by replicas, to save wear and tear on the antiques). The tour finally ends at four.

Is it physically possible to pull ourselves together for the AA meeting? We’re elementally bushed. The dogs are barking. We find dinner at a busy nearby trattoria our hosts had recommended where we eat ‘family style’ crammed into a corner. Food’s good, though.

Yet another fucking tour. This one is a nighttime visit to the Basilica of Saint Mark. We are to be the only people in the Basilica. Our guide is genial, repetitive, and charming. In the dimmest light, we are seated in the nave and slowly the lights come up revealing the five vast golden domes and countless ecclesiastic luminaries. Utmost grandeur in absolute silence. I have rarely been privy to such magnificence. Behind the high altar, where the bones of St. Mark reside, we are shown an enormous screen with ordinary church portraiture, which pivots revealing on the other side, row upon row of enameled saints and angels, encrusted with precious stones. Our guide then takes us down into the crypt (Venice has a crypt?), where church muckety-mucks have been interred (since they drained the crypt and installed a pump system).

What a day! My crypt has been drained.