Venice: Monday - work day

Our last full day in Venice; early on Monday morning the Grand Canal has morphed from a weekend playground filled with recreational boats into a working river.  The main canal and the side canals are stuffed with a myriad of boats, primarily all of a similar design – long and narrow, with an inboard diesel motor, and steered by a stern tiller reminiscent of a sailboat’s tiller. The operators are casually competent, scarcely looking where they are going.  They have traveled these routes – a thousand times over.

A black and red cargo barge is stacked with groceries to re-provision some of the many restaurants, hotels, bars, and grocery stores.  Two latter-day Romeos lean on the cargo, staring brazenly at the camera while I take their photograph.  They are muscled, and lean, and middle-age handsome, not in the least bit camera-shy. 


Aboard the “Marta”, a sleek black vessel with blue and green trim, the two workers heft ninety-pound sacks of cement onto a wheeled-dolly, stacking them tightly in bricklayer fashion.  Shoving hard to overcome the inertia they roll their heavy cargo towards a construction job.  The boat is loaded with still more building supplies to be lifted, stacked, and pushed to the final location. 

A red, yellow and white barge the “Luca” slides past with boxes of new air-conditioners, and pipes.  The driver is nonchalantly texting a friend, while he steers the boat with the tiller placed between his legs.  All I can think of is; what if he hits a wave?  That's gonna hurt! 

 

Another flat-decked craft cruises past with bulk wine deliveries.  Stacked on the deck are numerous wicker-wrapped fifty-litre flagons, looking like oversized Chianti wine bottles suitable for fairytale giants.  "Do the green tags indicate white wine, and the red tags indicate red wine?"  We wonder aloud.

Garbage scows piled high with the previous nights' trash slowly work their routes, the crews collecting boxes and bags stacked along the narrow side canals.  

Scrap dealers aboard the black and white “Morodi Venezia” chug along the waterfront headed away from the busy centre of Venice.  Their boat is loaded with the unwanted broken bits and pieces of a modern life – rusty drums, rotting bits of metal, and a collapsed bicycle.  Different boats deliver the replacement purchases: a refrigerator, more furniture, and a new red bicycle.

At seven in the morning several boats are moored at the fish market; workers toss wet, dripping boxes onto the wharves.  The boxes are full of still-wriggling fish and mysterious sea creatures.  A few I recognize such as calamari, eel, sardines, and octopus.  Others are unidentified species, things that I couldn't imagine eating. 

In contrast to the sweating workers – we watch a finely dressed bride and groom slowly pick their way through the smelly, wet, fish-market.  They are headed for a small romantic bridge that seems to be in vogue for wedding photos.  This is the third bride that I have seen, dress hem held high, stepping delicately in white satin-covered shoes around the leaking boxes of fresh fish.  A compliant groom and photographer trail behind. Whatever the bride wants...



We enjoyed seeing the two sides of Venice; the touristy side and the working side. 

Both Lawrie and I are boat-lovers.  Watching the crews and the work boats ply the canals of Venice was a great way to spend our last day in this fabled city.

Orleans France, hot bed of royal intrigue

Jeanne d'Arc

Jeanne d'Arc lowered herself onto her left knee, bowing her head in subservience -quietly pledging to her Dauphin, Charles VII, to escort him to Reims to be crowned as the rightful King of France. 

Jeanne d'Arc, or as we know her Joan of Arc, was just 17 years old.  Hers is a history recounted by innumerable famous authors, film makers, and more recently animated computer games.  She said that she had visions from God that instructed her to recover her homeland from the English, overrun by King Henry V of England in 1337, in a war started as a succession dispute between the French Armagnacs and the French Burgundians. 

The uncrowned King Charles VII sent her to the siege of Orléans as part of a relief mission.  She gained prominence when she overcame the dismissive attitude of veteran commanders and destroyed the siege in only nine days earning her the soubriquet, The Maid of Orléans.

 Orléans Cathedral underconstruction between 1278 & 1329

A skirmish in northern France on Mary 23rd 1430 led to her capture, when her forces were overrun by the Dauphins rivals, the Burgundians. 

She was unhorsed and sold to the English by Duke Philip of Burgundy.  The English Duke of Bedford claimed the throne of France on behalf of his nephew Henry VI. 

Inside the Cathedral

Joan of Arc had been responsible for the rival coronation, hence condemning her was an move to undermine the king's legitimacy.

She attempted several escapes, on one occasion jumping from her 70 foot (21 m) tower to the soft earth of a dry moat, after which she was moved to the Burgundian town of Arras in northern France.

Jeanne d'Arc watching over the square

On May 3th 1431 the saviour of Orléans, nineteen-year-old Jeanne d'Arc, was burned at the stake, as a heretic, because, well, I guess, a mere woman should never annoy men by getting involved in politics, war, or religion.

The present day Orléans has many statues commemorating Jeanne d'Arc.  It is an extraordinarily beautiful city, saturated with history, culture, art, and the all important ingredient - money - necessary to keep everything functioning. 

We stayed in a modest hotel on the main pedestrian street, and wandered up and down the centre of the old city, at one point sighting a bride impatiently waiting for her groom to arrive at the civil registry office. 

Waiting for arrival of groom

Later on Saturday night we discovered the modern tradition of stag or stagette parties celebrating in the city square, under the watchful eye of a very stern Jeanne d'Arc mounted on horseback. 

Saturday night stag party in Orleans France

I wonder what she would have thought about that; people older than she, enjoying silly frivolous fun on a Saturday night, without a care in the world?