But before I jump to the title I need to roll things back till Wednesday , our last full day in Venice, and by that I mean a very full day.
We spent the morning visiting the Rialto Bridge and market area complete with a fresh vegetable market and fish market. On display at the latter were a variety of sea creatures, including octopus and shrimp, scampi and the black squid featured in the regional black pasta dishes, some large tuna steaks and halibut took on a slightly different look when seen as whole chunks of fish, ass opposed to serving size.
Following the market tour we spent some time enjoying visits to a couple of churches in the area, the first, the much smaller Church SAN POLO ( S. Paulo Apostolo)- perhaps one of the oldest in Venice with its boat hull shaped ceiling and its various at works from ancient Venetian Masters.
A block or so away we found the much larger Frari Church ( The Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari) Built in !942 by the Franciscan Order it features massive works byTitian, Bellini and Donatello. Itself the size of a large Cathedral, one could not fail to be impressed with the soaring nave and intricately carved Choir area.
We completed our sorti in time for a quick lunch before completing our tour of the Grand Canal by Vaporeto to the train station and then a connecting boat to the island of Murano, home of the famous, and famously expensive Murano Glass.
While Susanna purchased a small piece, I opted not to barter on the art piece I had selected- feeling safer to just to turn tail and run!
The piece, 10 inches high, perhaps 12-15 pounds of glass appeared to be a crystal enclosing several small jelly fish of varyingcolours of glass, their bodies and tentacles beautifully done in contrasting colours. At ONLY 4900 Euro or $7400 Canadian it would have looked amazing as the centre piece of my coffee table, but , perhaps a little to large to fit in my carry on. Besides a certain spouse would have probably used it as an anchor when she threw my beaten corpse into the Grand Canal!! LOL
Departing Murano, we boarded another for a somewhat lengthy trip to the island of Burano, famous for lace and the fact that most houses are painted in different colours, some pastel shades of yellow and orange or blue, some in screamingly bold reds, pinks, purples and blues, We wandered the town for an hour before catching another boat back to our home stop at the Fondamente Nove and from there a 5 minute walk to our B & B.
Wednesday morning required an early start for our 5 part journey to Bled. Firstly the Vaporetto to the train station, platform 5 then a train to Gorizia on the Italian border. The train stations in Italy and Slovenia are 5 km apart with a bus ride in between, complicated by a lack of understanding of the ticket vendors Italian explanation, which resulted in us almost missing the bus. Alighting at the border we crossed into Slovenia through the front doors of the Nova Gorica train station, looking & Bvery impressive from the front but rather blah and indifferent once we got to the platforms. The border was non existent to view, with the original border control booths and guards a think of the past.
After purchasing tickets we settled in for a 90 minute wait for the train to Bled, so we shared a baguette of ham and cheese while we waited. Upon it's arrival the train took on the appearance of glorified school bus as dozens of students ascended onto the train for their rides home. Between Nova Gorica and Bled were stops at toughly 6-10 minute intervals to release small groups into their respective villages, thus making the journey almost 2 hours, The route was mostly mountainous with some amazing views, extremely long tunnels and the scent of freshly cut wood as we passed through several towns involved in harvesting lumbar. The train rolled into Bled Jezero station at 4:30 but it was 5pm by the time we located a taxi and arrived at our Guesthouse for the evening.
To be continued::
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