Lebkuchen: Venice Trip: Wandering, Indiana Jones and Pizza

Monday, April 5, 2010

Venice Trip: Wandering, Indiana Jones and Pizza

It was time to check in at our hotel and hunt down dinner. We walked and walked and walked, following Google Maps directions to the hotel David printed out back home. And we walked some more.

What many of the bridges look like in the more residential areas of Venice.

And we walked some more. Where was the hotel? After at least an hour and a half of wandering the streets, David called the hotel, got directions, and realized that Google had failed us miserably by at least 10 blocks. Where's your navi when you need it? We finally managed to find the lovely hotel, deposit our backpacks and it was time for dinner. And we didn't need to bring umbrellas. No rain after all.

Walking through the neighborhood of Campo San Barnaba, we turned a corner and came upon the Church of Saint Barnabas, at which point I whooped, "Aha! Found it!"

To prepare the kids a bit for our trip here, we did what we usually do, which is watch a movie that was filmed in the city we would be visiting. We watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but since this trip came up rather quickly, I didn't map out places to see from the movie, and really, there is a scene at a library and a chase in a canal and that was it for Venice. I made a mental note that the library Indiana visits and under which he find catacombs was actually a church with big green doors. (Research I did after the trip confirmed that filming was done in front of the 14th century Church of Saint Barnabas.)

Emilie posing on the sewer cover through which Indy makes his escape, finding himself in the middle of a crowded café. Indy looks around at the postcard-perfect setting, smiles, and says, "Ah, Venice!"