Masks, Glass and a City built on Water

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Bonjourno from Venezia!

Well we made it! After a relaxing restful night at Leeds Bradford Airport - not, we boarded our plane to Bergamo (town just outside of Milan) at 7am. Our 10 quid flights took off and landed very smoothly, we both slept the whole way as the plane chairs, while vinyl and from the 80’s were still a whole lot more comfy than those at the airport! We made our way successfully from Bergamo to Venice using the only Italian words we knew frequently - Ciao and Grazie (at least they’re relevant).

Venice is such a beautiful city, we thought we’d have a really hard time navigating our way to our hotel but the 9 weeks travelling experience over summer must have taught us something about finding our way around new and foreign cities as we found our hotel straight away. We spent the rest of the day exploring Venice on foot. It is, quite literally a maze of canals and alley ways. At first it was hard to imagine what Venice would have been like in its heyday as most of the buildings are in desperate need of renovating and a lot need a new coat of paint but after a while, the almost ramshackle feel of it adds to the charm and if you look past the peeling paint, rotting wooden door frames and algae covered steps of some of the buildings along the canals you can see the remains of frescoes and intricate mosaic tiling and begin to imagine how stunning the place would have been in the 15th century.

Venice has always been a tourist town really as it was built as a go between for the East and West along the trade routes. It was originally built as a kind of refugee camp for those on the mainland as the mainland city kept getting raped and pillaged during the fall of the Roman Empire. So they dug the canals and started trading (they couldn’t farm anymore as they had no land).

As it is quite a small city and apparently has 400 bridges and 2000 alleys, the number one thing to do in Venice is wander and inevitable get lost, but that is the beauty of it. If you keep walking, you’ll eventually find an open square, where you will, of course, have another 5 or so options. Choose one and see where that takes you. You can’t get too lost, you’re on an island!! We got lost frequently, sometimes deliberately and sometimes accidentally but almost everytime you either surprised yourself by finding what you were looking for or uncovered a gem of a view, coffee shop, restaurant or building. The shopping is good in Venice as well of course, especially if you like masks and glass! Venice is known for, obviously, its exquisite Venetian masks (of which the most exquisite come with a rather exquisite price tag!!) and its Murano glass.

It was weird to be travelling again after stopping in the UK for so long and as we’d only finished work a few days earlier it hadn’t really sunk in yet that, a) we’re technically on our way home (going the long way round though for sure!!!), b) we’re not returning to Sutton and c) we’re in Italy!!!! Luckily, we will return to Italy in March for a more thorough exploration. For now though, we’re off to discover new places and re-discover our favourites in Eastern Europe.

Ciao!

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Photos

Our Canal
The small canal right near our hotel, complete with a gondola cruising up the middle.

St Mark's Square
St Marks Basilica (no photos allowed inside - sorry folks) is to the left of Trish and the lion's bum.

St Mark's Basilica
Venice took on religious significance when they acquired the bones of St Mark. There is a dramatic painting at Accademia (Venice's main art gallery) by Jacopo Tinteretto that shows the "Transporting of St Mark's Body" (also the name of the painting). You should able to see it if you google the name and artist. Pretty dramatic stuff.

Us on Rialto Bridge
The Bridge is covered (literally covered) with souvenir shops and stalls. Any other bit of spare space is taken up by tourists - even in February! Can only imagine how busy this place gets in summer - ick!

The Rialto Bridge
This bridge was originally a wooden drawbridge but was rebuilt as the grand stone arch we see today during Venice's heyday (i.e. when it has loads of money).

More of St Mark's Basilica
This building really showcases Venice's "cross cultural" history. The building has Islamic onion style domes (you can just make them out in the back), and mosaics form the Byzantine era plus influences from Roman and French Gothic architecture in its aches and pinnacles.

Trish with Vivaldi
Or something like that???? Not sure why or who this guy is but he is rather large and stands out the front of a big, spacious and gloriously expensive Venetian mask shop. Great for window shopping!

The Square near our Vaporetto stop
A vaporetto is basically Venice's public transport - water buses. Although they rival London for cost - 6 euro a ride! Needless to say we walked most places, you can get a lot of vino for 6 euro!

Yet another canal (there are a lot!!!)
But check out the tower building thingo in the background. Who needs to go to Pisa to see a leaning tower eh?

Buildings on the Grand Canal
You can see the water damage on the building. Apparently Venice floods 100 times a year (not really surprising when you think about it). St Marks Square is the first to flood as it is the lowest point and when that happens they set up trestle table type footpaths. You can see them stored in the alleys off the Square. Luckily it didn't flood when we were there, that is a whole lot of tourists to cram onto those narrow makeshift footpaths!

Comments

[Terry and Kathy]

Venice canals
Hi there Dan and Trish, Venice looks great and you both look like your enjoying it there, hey, roughly how deep is the water in those canals?? Also while were asking questions, where does Venice get their drinking water from?? We won't ask were the sewerage and rubbish goes. Keep having lots more fun and stay safe, lots of love and best wishes from Terry, Kathy and Mark

[Dan and Trish]

Venice
The drinking water in Venice is much fresher than Geraldton's! They get it in from the Swiss Alps, just like Mount Franklin....or something like that. Not sure how deep the canals are, sometimes in the smaller canals when the tide is a little low you can see the sides of the canal covered in mud and stuff. The gondolas don't need much to float in as there are pictures of them in St Mark's Square when it flooded (and it we're pretty sure it wasn't above knee height (well Daniel's knee height). Everything is really expensive, even for the locals as it all has to be shipped in (obviously) and so we assume the waste has to be shipped out as well....how lucky for the mainlanders! Great to hear from you, hope all is well.