Thursday May 16, Venice

Having difficulty with wifi here, will load  photos when I can!
 
Since we have been talking about going to Italy, there have been many varying opinions of visiting Venice, some saying that it is dirty and full of tourists while others said it was a must see. And I am so glad that we came, it exceeded our expectations. We loved it. And the weather couldn’t be better, beautiful sunny day and pleasantly warm.

It was an early start and we were on the bus at 7.30 along with all the workers. The bendy bus was full and standing room only. The 30 minute trip took us to the bus station with only a short walk to the Grand Canal. The city was just coming alive, shop windows were getting washed, paths getting swept and the little tourist booths with all the Venice bling were getting set up. The gondolas were getting polished and ready for the tourists. We were utterly fascinated as we set off finding our way around the streets. Decided to take a Vaporetto ride down the Grand Canal and check out St Marks Square first. There are stations everywhere where you can pick up these water taxis, and just like buses they have numbered “routes”. Found the correct one without any problems and just loved our ride, boats ducking and diving everywhere.

What we hadn’t thought about was that as there are no roads in Venice, everything has to come by boat, and then any freight is unloaded and pushed down the little streets to where it is needed. All the while trying to get past the tourists who are ambling along the streets. It is a flurry of activity. We saw DHL boats delivering their parcels, Ambulance boats with lights flashing and even spotted a hearse passing through a canal with a coffin on the back. This is a city like no other. 

Had thought that St Marks Square at 9.30am would not be too busy, but quite wrong. There were people everywhere including huge groups of Asians with the selfie sticks. Hard to believe what it must be like in the high season.

Wandered back to the Rialto Bridge, getting lost amongst the myriad of narrow lanes and bridges over canals, which does seem to be a good way of enjoying some of the sights of Venice. We wanted to return to a market near the bridge that we had seen from the boat, and eventually got there. Stalls everywhere selling fruit and vegetables and seafood….just so many varieties.

There are very few places that you can sit down in Venice and by midday our legs were rather weary. Found a café with outdoor seats and were very happy to sit down and enjoy a pizza for lunch and rest our legs. Decided it was probably a good idea to take a vaporetto this afternoon to the island of Morano, famous for glass making. Firstly we had to find our way back to St Mark’s Square where we picked up the water taxi and had great seats in the front of the boat for the half hour trip across to the island.

There was a much more leisurely pace on the island, enjoyed a walk around and were very happy to sit down in the sun beside the canal with a (nother!) aperol spritzer and watch the world go by. Back to the mainland, and found the bus back to camp arriving home after 5pm. It has been a long day, but have really enjoyed it. I have taken lots of photos, but would need to spend days here to really capture the place. We will sleep well tonight.