The most difficult part about visiting Venice is culling the vast number of photographs down to a reasonable level! Venice is a unique city and an interesting place to visit, full of interesting architecture, history, and culture. We were fortunate enough to go with Francesco and Doni. While they aren't residents of Venice, they are more familiar with the city than many since Florinda, their daughter, recently graduated from a university there. We parked on the mainland and took a bus over to the island. This is definitely the most economical way to drive to Venice, although trains are also an option. The bus dropped us off very close to a large, attractive, and new bridge: Ponte della Costituzione. It was only put in place in 2008, 15 years before we visited. (It is also called the Calatrava Bridge after the person who designed it.) This bridge was also our first introduction to a very common theme of Venetian bridges: steps. The vast majority of bridges in Venice have stairs. It is basically a requirement in this particular spot to prevent anyone from driving in to the rest of Venice (where there are no vehicles allowed on land), but even in the rest of Venice most bridges had steps, and not ramps. (A few have both.) As a guess, this likely provides better footing in a watery area. Residents and delivery people often utilize carts with special stair-climbing tri-wheels.
Since we had been driving for a while, we stopped at a little shop for a bite to eat. We will write more about this type of food in a bit.
Doni had found a very nice AirBnB for us to rent for a night. First we had to walk there, which was a fun introduction to Venice. Many of the so-called streets (pedestrian only, of course) are very narrow, and some have sections that are more like tunnels, with buildings spanning the alleyway. The sign painted on the wall above Francesco is a street sign, and this is the entrance to the street Calle Del Spezier. We don't know why the man in the next photo, presumably a talented waiter, was carrying multiple plates along the street.
See the listing here for the AirBnB. It was right on one of the many canals. And we do mean directly on; one way to get to this rental would be by boat. The location was easy enough to get to from the entrance of Venice. It is a bit of a walk to the main attractions but has the benefit of being quieter. This is a tradeoff we are happy to have made.
Click on this link or on the photograph below to see a video that Paul made of the rental.
After getting ourselves set up in the apartment, we went to eat some lunch and then explore the city. Our meal was a very typical Venetian lunch, Cicchetti. These are basically finger foods, usually eaten at a cicchetti bar with a small glass of local wine and with friends. Paul and Francesco honored this tradition with some white wine, but Doni and Anne had another famous drink from Venice, a spritz. Anne had heard of these many times, so it was fun to try one. The verdict: good but not really her style.
Anne bucked the trend and instead had a really delicious eggplant parmigiana.
As we finished, Doni pointed out the 'Teatro Italia' and said we should go look at it.
Turns out it is a grocery store! You can still see the decorations and, in roughly the middle of this photo, where the lights and projectors would have been.
Obviously, the canals are an integral part of Venice and influences much of life there. This photograph shows a very typical scene in Venice. There is one of the many bridges that goes over a small canal. There is a door that goes directly out to the water. There is a street sign over a tunnel entrance to a small road that goes along the canal. And in the foreground are steps that go down into the water. The water level varies in Venice, and the steps allow entering a boat even if the water is lower or higher than usual.
It also means that deliveries are made by boat (as seen in the red boat on the other side of the gondola) and then by wheeled carts. If you look closely, you can see that there is a dolly loaded with boxes.
We don't know where these construction vehicles were going but wherever that was, they were getting there on a boat.
Based on the jacket that the man in this next boat is wearing, they seem to be delivering oil or propane.
Even emergency services involve boats. This is a fire station in Venice. Instead of firetrucks, they have fireboats.
Many buildings are directly on the water, while some canal edges are walkways which sometimes have canal-side dining options.
Of course, the canals also provide the opportunity to see the city from the water in a gondola. We did not end up taking a gondola ride, but if we had it would have been this one. The man in the red shirt is a tourist from the USA who just finished his ride and said that he really enjoyed it.
Many people do take these rides, so much so that there can be traffic jams.
The passengers and even the gondoliers don't seem to mind much, though. And it provides a relaxing way to view the city.
Relaxing for the passengers, anyway. The gondoliers are working, and ducking.
The gondolas themselves are attractive and also make a great theme, as shown in this window display chocolate fountain.
The water levels in the canals, as we mentioned earlier, vary. They are sometimes low (acqua bassa). When that happens, some of the small canals dry out to a point that they are not navigable. And sometimes the water level is high (acqua alta). The high water is common. On the more popular streets they keep raised platforms ready to be implemented so people can walk above the water. And many doors in lower-lying sections of the city have water barriers.
The high water inspired the name of a bookstore in the city: Libreria Acqua Alta. They have embraced the watery aspects of Venice, putting their bookshelves away from the ground, and using a gondola to display their books. They even have an old gondola in the water by their canal-side door, and allow visitors to hop in for a photo-op.
Let's move on to a second page on our visit to Venice.
Updated August 2024