Day 5 - Tuesday, June 18 - Venice and boarding ship

Our main plan for today was to visit the Correr Museum in San Marco Plaza and to do some shopping before collecting our luggage at the hotel and heading to the ship.

The Correr Museum is in part of the complex of buildings around San Marco Plaza associated with the Doge palace and was originally built in the 12th century. In the 19th century it was used by the emperor and empress of the Austrian empire when they visited and conducted business in Venice. A number of the private and state rooms have been restored meticulously to the way they appeared when Empress Sissi was there.

The museum includes a notable collection of famous sculptures and paintings. One of the most interesting is a complete collection of coins that were minted in Venice from the 800s to the 1800s.

As we were walking around the plaza, we could see a section that was pulled up and the water level was only 12-18" below the surface. This was after the entire surface of the Plaza was pulled up in 2006, a layer of sand put down and the stones replaced. During major floods, the water has been as much as 5' over the top of the Plaza and it regularly floods smaller amounts. In typical years, Venice floods 60 days a year. There have been plans to build "surge" gates to keep the high water out but don't know if this is moving forward.

Venice is certainly a unique city in that all the transportation is by boat or on foot. We got around mostly by taking the vaporetto water buses but there are boats for ambulances, police, trash collection, UPS, food supplies and virtually everything that needs to be moved. We wondered what it took to assemble huge construction cranes the loomed over some of the buildings.  Many of the mansions have openings where boats can go right into the building! There are no wheeled vehicles other than carts used by the porters. Bicycles are not allowed as they would be too dangerous to pedestrians and are not practical for going up and down the stairs of the bridges needed to go anywhere.

When we boarded the ship around 4:30, we were among the last to arrive - it doesn't leave until 11pm so there was no worry. Soon after we boarded there was a mandatory emergency drill to explain the use of life preservers and evacuation procedure. At 6:30 we went to a very interesting talk about the history of Venice, describing the political structure over time. The Venice system of a Doge leader elected by the nobility went on for about a 1000 years, one of the longest empires.

The ship has 930 passengers which is small compared with 4000-5000 passenger ships but much larger than the 160 passenger river cruise ships we have been on. The service is impeccable, very similar to the Viking river cruises we have been on. We used the buffet for our first dinner and the variety of food was incredible and all delicious. Viking certainly caters to an older crowd - we haven't seen any children and we are among the younger passengers.
San Marco Plaza from the canal

San Marco Plaza typical flooding

San Marco Basilico from the front
Murano Glass in shop

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