Never Underestimate The Power Of Church Bells In The Morning.

The quiet streets of the Jewish ghetto on a Sunday
morning before the masses of people emerge 

So here I am in Italy. It is the end of the second day and I'm feeling pretty comfortable with the city, meaning I haven't really gotten lost. Does that mean I haven't tried hard enough to go off of the tourist grid?
The first day in this city was a little underwhelming. That's hard to say since Venice has been my #1 travel destination since the first time I knew what Venice was. Why wasn't it very impressive? Well, maybe the 24 hours of travel to get here, a lot of stairs (hotels and bridges) climbed with my suitcase (I'm guessing 150-200), an 80 euro hotel room that was budget at best (clean but... outdated, and I'm not usually picky), a blown - and I mean sparks flying, smoking while in the wall - electricity converter within the first 10 minutes of being in the hotel, a sudden rain and temperature drop that I am not prepared for, mediocre tourist -trap-restaurant dinner, asleep by 8 pm kinda day. I liked it, but I wasn't enthralled like I hoped and wanted to be.

Then this morning happened. Ann (my friend and travel buddy) and I got up and ready, and left the hotel at 9. We got breakfast at some local corner shops and ate as we walked to the Jewish ghetto area under a cool, sunny, cloudless blue sky. As it is Sunday, church bells were ringing throughout the neighborhood. Never underestimate the power of church bells to make you fall madly in love with a place, because that is what happened to me. I don't know exactly what it is about church bells, but there is something calming and real about them - people going to church, checking their clocks, starting their day that puts me in the middle of the lives of people who live this way ever day.  It makes me feel connected because suddenly, if for only a moment, I am one of them.  Anyway.  It continued being a wonderfully beautiful day, with great food thanks to a middle school friend's restaurant recommendation, a much better hotel that we moved to this afternoon (part of the Rick Steves' My Way Tour we were joining), renewed energy, my seemingly divinely inspired ability to navigate this city (what else could it be?), some gelato, mass in Latin, frequent vaporetto rides, and scenery to die for when you can get away from the tourists (easier said than done). Gosh, I love this place!

It really IS possible to find streets where there aren't mobs of people.

St. Mark's Square and the Campanile (bell tower)

Me waiting for the next #1 vaparetto along  the Grand Canal 

View of St. Mark's, the Campanile, and the Doge's Palace from the bell tower on San Giorgio Maggiore, a small island right across from Venice proper

 

A gondola workshop!  

This was actually my first view of Venice, coming across the first bridge from the bus station.  Since my hands were full of luggage and a map on the day Ann and I arrived, I had to go back to see this just one more time.

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