The previous two posts caught you up through Wednesday. Thursday morning we tried to go to Murano but the service was suspended because of the high water. We are now back in the right sequence. I last mentioned that the rain stopped around noon Thurs and we were headed out on another adventure. This time we were off to the opera!
After we decided to come to Venice, I started looking into whether or not we might be able to catch an opera while here. When I first looked up "Venice Opera" online, the "La Fenice" came up. I thought it must be some ancient spelling of Venice. Wrong!! Turns out it means "The Phoenix" because the current building rose from the ashes of a 2003 fire.
From our many trips up and down the Grand Canal, I had picked out a building I thought might be big enough to be it. As we approached the Giglio stop, the vaparetto had to stand off to allow a raft of gondolas to clear the landing area. There were four rowing together, with an accordion player and singer in one, serenading the group.
As we got off, workers were removing the high water walkways. What we thought were risers turned out to be stands with sections of walkways. If they have to do this for every high tide from Oct-April, these guys will stay busy.
We were walking along a narrow path, and suddenly, off to the side, a gondola went past. They were paralleling us on a small ria.
We suddenly came upon a lagoon, where there was a large workboat named
La Traviata -- the boat belonged to the opera! We could see the building, but there was no entrance.
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| the building on the left is La Fenice |
While we were figuring out where to go, we suddenly were treated to a sort of water ballet. Gondolas were coming from three directions -- including the one with the singer. They were followed by a second group with an even better singer. It was great fun!
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