Venice Italy - Orienting Ourselves

 2 July 2024 - Venice

When we arrived at the Florence train station from Lucca, we found out that the high speed line from Rome to Florence had experienced some type of outage and all the northbound high speed trains were an hour late.  Our train wasn’t on the board yet, but I worried whether I needed to call the company handling our transfer in Venice to let them know of our delay.  Good thing I waited, because our train left sort of on time so we got to Venice roughly on time. After some communication issues, we finally found our transfer guide who got us to the porters who would take our luggage directly to the hotel and got us onto a vaporotto (equivalent of a city bus) for the hotel.  The vaporottos run up and down the Grand Canal and were pretty easy for me and my scooter to get on and off. We ended up using them several times during our stay. The first few days, we just explored the streets, getting a sense of how to get around.  The hundreds of bridges are beautiful but I can’t go over them with my scooter.  We did discover that several of the bridges on the Grand Canal have ramps.  Interestingly enough, people seemed to prefer to walk on them instead of the steps, so the crowds presented a challenge. We explored several of the neighborhoods and had fun seeing how far I could go before being stopped by bridges. We also discovered that Venice is basically sitting on mud islands and at high tide, things flood, especially St. Marks Square.  

I have never visited a place as intriguing as Venice.  It has an atmosphere, a being, that is so different from the other Italian cities we have visited.  Maybe because I have never been to a city where the only means of transportation is by boat makes it feel exotic. The buildings are beautiful in a shabby chic way, but inside, many are elegant. Restaurants have a focus on seafood, yet the pizza we had was some of the best. I get the sense that the people think of themselves as Venetian first, Italians second. I’m glad we were able to explore some of the neighborhoods to see how Venetians live.  Staying only in the tourist section of the Duomo would have given me a very different impression.

Gondolas stored away because of upcoming rain. 

St Mark’s Square was being used as a concert venue, so we didn’t get the great views of St. Mark’s Basilica that we were hoping for.

The first night in Venice, we had a delicious sea bass dinner.

Fortunately, the server deboned the fish for us - not my favorite thing to do.  It was a very warm and humid night and I found the mini fan very useful, propped up and aimed toward my face. The circulating air cooled things down just enough.

They seated us right next to the dessert trolley, so I had lots of time to decide what I was going to have.

We were treated to a little show during dinner.  The restaurant backed up to a bridge.  These two, along with a photographer, were staging some kind of chase/confrontation scene, complete with a knife.  All dressed up in very ornate capes and masks, as if they were coming from a Venetian carnival ball.  

The lobby and sitting area of our hotel were decorated with several modern mosaics.

Our room, while small, was beautifully decorated.  It had Venetian glass wall scones and a small chandelier.

I chose this hotel because of the restaurant terrace.  It fronts on the Grand Canal and has beautiful views. We ate breakfast there every day (except for the day it rained) and had a couple of lunches as well.

There was a gondola base just to the side, so we had great fun watching the tour groups being taken for short rides.  Boy, those gondoliers work so hard! I read that they are well paid, making up to $150,000 a year.  They own their own gondolas and take great pride in keeping them up. It was so congested, I thought boats would be colliding all over the place, but it was like a very carefully choreographed dance.

When we went out to find a place for dinner the second night, we walked into St. Mark’s Square and found this! The place is flooded!  It bubbles up through the plaza during high tide.  I had seen pictures of the flooded plaza, but thought it only happened when there were heavy rains combined with high tides.  Nope, it happens every day.  So we learned to time our evening meals around high tide.

The famous “Bridge of Sighs” between the Doge Palace and the prison.  The two windows were the last opportunities for prisoners to see the outdoors before being locked up in the prison (and usually dying there.)

Some of the facade decorations on the Doge Palace

One of the ramps over a bridge on the Grand Canal. We spent one day walking along the Grand Canal and exploring some of the neighborhoods.

There are lots of bakeries with wonderful displays of desserts.

A monument to Victor Emmuel, celebrating Venice’s release from Austrian rule

Looking across the Grand Canal to the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore.

Continuing on across the bridges, we saw this leaning tower. When we figured out how to get there, we discovered it is part of a Greek Orthodox Church.

The Venetian Arsenal houses former shipyards and armories. It housed the Venetian Navy from Middle Ages to modern times.

The ramps over the bridges ended on this island, bordering the Arsenal.  So we decided we would see how far I could go before hitting bridges I couldn’t go over.  We stopped for a short while so Russ could get a hair cut at a barbershop we spotted.  He ended up with SHORT hair, so I don’t think he will need another haircut until we get back.

The canals were getting narrower and we didn’t see many gondolas with tourists.  These were mostly working boats.

The sidewalks were getting narrower also, but they kept going.

Came across a produce gondola, just packed full of beautiful fruits and vegetables.  They were offloading them, I expect for local restaurants.

When we walked past an hour or so later, the boat was empty and the workers were gone.

Parking for locals.

I am conjecturing that this area is home to some of the gondoliers and this is where they park their extra boats when not in use.

Came around a corner into a tiny plaza and found this church. Established in 900s AD, it is call San Giovanni Novo (New) because it was rebuilt in the 12th century. It wasn’t open for us to tour. Several tourist groups were here, found out it was probably because when Vivaldi studied for the priesthood, he said his first mass here.

The end of our walk into this neighborhood was at the Basilica di San Pierre di Costello (St. Peter’s church). This is the co-cathedral of the city, along with St. Mark’s Basilica, but tourist groups don’t usually come here. It is just across from the Arsenal. The church was established in the 7th century. Rebuilt in the 1100s after a fire destroyed the original one, the structure of the church retains this design.  The interior has been reworked several times, the most recent in the 1500s by Andrea Palladio, a famous Venetian architect. He had a huge influence on early American colony architecture.

St. Peter’s tower is also leaning. Not surprising considering the soil is mushy mud just inches below the surface.

The high altar contains the remains of the first Patriarch of Venice.

On our walk back to our hotel, we saw this yacht.  Not many big private boats on the Grand Canal, so I googled it - belongs to an Australian with Venetian roots.  

We took the Vaporatto across the canal to the church and beautiful venue on the point.  Our hotel is the one with all the gondolas in front of it.