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Published: October 12th 2005
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Romantic ride
We really enjoyed our gondola ride, as you can tell. The Rialto bridge is in the background. (Posted on October 11th by Kim)
Venice is the city of my dreams- the answer to my friends in high school who asked “If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?” I never imagined that I would actually go, though. This was Hartley, Texas, population 300 where several people in my graduating class had never even left the panhandle, much less the state of Texas. But on September 24th, I was there wandering through the floating streets and even enjoying on romantic ride on a gondola…just like in the pictures, with an even cuter guy next to me than I’d imagined! Visiting Venice really was a dream come true for me!
Even though we only spent a day in Venice, it was well worth it. We arrived just after lunch. I was tired that morning and so Joe surprised me on the train with a Dr. Pepper! He had been carrying 2 the whole time from Austin in his backpack, hidden from me. He had told me the night before in Cinque Terre that he had a surprise for me but it had to wait until the right time. I was having a down morning
A very happy Kim
Think I can sell this ad to Dr. Pepper? where I was tired and not feeling well, but this was exactly what I needed! Joe gave me one and gave one to Tanya & Wilson…none for him. He had stood his ground in not buying me a rose from a pushy vendor in Rome, and I have to say the Dr. Pepper was much more romantic than a rose from a pushy vendor any day! I completely enjoyed the Dr. Pepper, and it set my mood for the rest of the day. I definitely got lucky when I married Joe…I mean, smuggled Dr. Pepper and Venice all in one day is too good to be true!
So Venice really is a whole city on water…even the train station is floating on the lagoon that makes up Venice. All of the buildings in Venice are built by putting the foundation on wood piles that rest on the clay and sand under the lagoon. The wood piles do not decay since they are underwater and not exposed to oxygen. Many of the older buildings have sunk over time so that the ground floors flood fairly often with high tides. An American couple we were talking to in Rome was saying
they had been in Venice and the water was so high that they had to wade across the main square in front St. Mark’s (Piazza San Marco). The flood waters had receded by the time we made it there, though, and the weather was perfect once again.
As soon as we got to Venice we locked up our big backpacks at the train station and headed out to hop on a bus…. a water bus! The “mass transit” system of Venice is a system of small boats that traverse the many canals. They even have “bus stations” that are docks and have “bus lines” just like other bus systems. Even the police and ambulances are boats. Very cool place just to experience.
After lunch and a little bit of shopping we had to take a ride on a Gondola…and it was worth it! Our gondolier was a very nice Venetian, and while he spoke English, he had such a heavy accent that I had trouble making out what he said a lot of the time…something about Cassanova. He was very informative but also let us just enjoy the peace and quiet of some of the smaller canals. Again,
without scooters and cars the city was very peaceful, especially away from the main canal. Our gondolier said that he had only fallen out of the gondola twice, and both were intentional. He also told us that he had to take a test like a driving test to be able to operate his gondola and be under “training” for a year. He was trained by his father, so it’s a family business. He acted like you could only be a gondolier if your father was one and trained you, but I’m not positive about that. The Gondolas are all black, and the gondoliers have strict rules about right of way and announcing when they come to an intersection of canals. He had amazing control of the gondola with only one oar, and proved it by bringing us within inches of the side of one of the buildings without scraping it. Since Venice wasn’t always a part of Italy they have some different words than regular Italian, too. The whole experience was very relaxing and interesting. And while I had heard that you don’t want to fall in the smelly water, there was only one canal that had a slight odor,
although none looked inviting for swimming!
After our ride we rode the “bus” to the Piazza San Marco where Joe and Wilson took off their shoes and Joe loved rubbing his feet on the cool stairs. We also were “treated” to a street violin performer…let’s just say we were laughing hysterically because it was so bad! We discussed paying him to stop, but we thought maybe that was his strategy all along. We took the long way back around the canal on the “bus” and then enjoyed our last Italian meal before hopping on an overnight train to Zurich, which left 22:51 and arrived at 8:51 the following morning in Switzerland! We really enjoyed our relaxed day of just experiencing Venice. I definitely recommend it to everyone!
-Kim
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