Venice: Impressions

I loved Venice best. All the authors that described it in elegantly decay and on the way to its demise couldn't have stood on the bridges breathing in the Mediterranean scents having just stepped off a Vapporetto bus and past artisans that are absolutely everywhere.

How can we convey what Venice is like? Try to imagine being in a place that seems too beautiful to be real, Disneyland times 100 because it isn't contrived or recreated, and the patina is earned and the city teems with the sounds and smells of life. That is Venice.

It was sensory overload, a world where man's will fights to survive every day. Travelers make their way on foot or by boat, there is no other choice. Deliveries arrive by boat and then transported by hand truck to the shops and restaurants. The work is hard.

Streets seem only necessary to connect travelers to bridges, to piazzas, to lagoons and spill together into wide boulevards that line the Grand Canal. It is exciting to watch how the Venetians have adapted and celebrate life. Boats are tied along canals like cars in carports at the end of the day.

Venice is relatively new compared with other cities in Italy (somewhere around 700 AD the first ruler was elected) but it feels older because it is unspoiled by the passage of time. There are remarkable landmarks at every turn, constantly being maintained to cope with the salt water and flooding and the ravages to the stilts and infrastructure that takes place.

Residences live alongside businesses in these tall, narrow buildings. How can year round residents not tire of the millions of annual visitors, even those of us who traveled just off season of the crush of crowds, and yet we found the pace to be leisurely and wait staff friendly and attentive. We most enjoyed late evening walks on nearly deserted streets.

Impressionism is big in Venice, as it is elsewhere in Italy, but what a canvas! How can one go wrong in Venice? The beauty actually made me believe I could be a Monet. I mean, really, isn't impressionism just painting something and then smudging it up?! (Ha! I wish...)