Craig's blog

Today was a very long, but excellent day.  Wake up call was at 6:00, breakfast at 6:30, and the bus departed at 7:30.  We bussed to Venice, then boarded a boat to get to San Marco square.  Our tour started at 9:30.  We toured the Doges palace and the Basilica.  Jessie is touring with the singers – and we don’t see much of her – she stays with her buddy and group of 8 singers and their chaperone.  Katie, Kelli, Patty and I are travelling with the “adult” group.  After the tour, the four of us walked through Venice, had a long, leisurely, tasty lunch (salad and pizza) in a cute restaurant, and walked to the open market.  Then we walked back to San Marco square to meet up with the rest of the adult group.  The singers were already headed back to the hotel to change in preparation for their concert.

The adults then went to a demonstration by the Murano glass blowers, which was impressive, and walked around their huge sales rooms.  We walked around Venice some more and ended up at a restaurant for a very early (4:30) dinner.  We weren’t particularly hungry and tons of food was served – most of it interesting seafood that none of my girls could really stomach.  You can see some of it in the pictures from today here.

Next we walked back to St. Marcos square and boarded a water taxi to get back to the train station.  It took us the length of the Grand Canal for our last views of Venice.

We trained to Padua, got off and waited for our bus to come get us and drive us to the small church where Cantabile was to perform.  We arrived at 8:40 for the 9:00 performance.  I was really worried the kids would be too exhausted (from jet lag – Jessie had hardly slept – and the very long day). 

The concert turned out to be extraordinary.  It was a sung beautifully as always, and the acoustics in the small church were great.  But the incredible thing was the way the audience of the small Italian community reacted.  They clearly enjoyed the first couple of pieces, but then they started joining in the singing.  The emotional energy continued to grow and Elena (the choir leader) really got into it and fanned the flames.  The group sang more songs than they planned, the audience was pulled up on stage for some of it, and they sang as they walked out of the church and then continued to sing outside the church with the community encircling them.  It was a very moving concert – there weren’t many dry eyes in the place – and was a great start for the choir.  We got back to the hotel about 11:45 PM and set our alarms for the 6:30 wakeup tomorrow!