Travels to Venice, 05.01.10

We assumed Labor Day would be a day when major attractions would be closed, and so it was a travel day between Florence and Venice, typically three hours by train. We upgraded (again) to the speed train, which makes just a few stops at towns along the route and therefore arrives well ahead of the standard train.

The countryside was so beautiful on this sunny and muggy day, and again Espresso with little napkins was served, and we felt suitably pampered by the time we arrived right at the water's edge of the Grand Canal in Venice, at last. We stood on the bridge surveying the busy waterway of Gondolas, Polocia, water taxis, water buses, and private boats with gaping mouths. We were sure we  had crawled into a postcard with our senses intact. There has to be other words to describe it because breathtaking is an inadequate word.

I would have been happy staying there on that bridge for the entire visit had it not been for my husband returning with bus tickets for the departure leg (Venice>Treviso>London) which we would be taking in two short days. We were incredibly mistaken for allowing such little time here.

So off we went on the Vaporetto water bus that was easy enough to figure out and dropped us at San Marco Square with just a short walk up and over a bridge and down narrow streets to the Hotel Kette. Water buses are easy provided you know which direction you intend to go (yah for Randy). The water was not unclean or smelly, and so we visited at an ideal time before the tides recede later in summer. We have a very spacious room on the 4th floor with a full sized shower (our first in Italy).

Venice is different than Rome or Florence, perhaps because its ancient heart survives almost entirely on tourism and spans just 6 miles across with a steadily declining population. The city is elegant and old, and in the piazzas are stacked wood stilt walkways to anticipate the continual flooding of the squares. There are hundreds of bridges and during our visit it seemed like we crossed over every one!

Venice calls to us with its picturesque impermanence and adaptability. It is vibrant and alive and hopelessly complex. Asking directions in half broken Spanish from a good-natured Venetian goes like this: a gesture to walk straight a while and eventually take a sharp right turn on a narrow street and then another left and you are there. (That describes every street in Venice) What worked for us was finding a close piazza marked on the map and worked our way in the general direction of where we wanted to go.

People walk along the skimpy streets all hours of the day and night, which are safe and well lit late into the evening. There are many other diners and sight-seers, as the shops and cafes and churches are open very late. But most of the locals are home at rest and dock their boats next to tall narrow residences on canals that reach deep into the city.

The first evening when it began to drizzle, and everyone pulled out their  colorful umbrellas, we became part of a painting to hang on a wall. We tossed on our jackets and walked forever, it seemed, on the nearly deserted streets that shone wet in the lamplight. On that first night in Venice, it was just for us.