Gondolas, glass making and those crazy canals

Trip Start Dec 06, 2005
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Trip End Jun 17, 2006


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Sunday, May 7, 2006

We're in Venice. How cool does that sound. Feel so lucky to be here when I'm young (or maybe I just feel young because 99% of foreigners are middle-aged). Anyway because staying in the heart of Venice is expensive and apparently a little dirty, we stayed at a friendly camping ground about 20mins out - which to our delight had a swimming pool, 2 spas, and a bar. Ripper. Headed into the city of canals soon after checking in, and it's pretty much as stunning as everyone says it is. There is a reason why it is the top tourist attraction in Italy, and why it must be hell in midsummer when Italians, other Europeans, and half of America's middle and upper class visit all at once. At the moment, I think we picked the best time to come - much less people and excellent weather.

So despite a still significant tourist population and associated priciness and loud and annoying visitors, Venice somehow manages to keep an old-school vibe and beauty that has stayed with it since the days of the Renaissance and powerful Italian city states 01 Classic Venice canal photo
01 Classic Venice canal photo
 . The canals make it a unique city, and together with the cheezy gondolas, water taxis with shiny wood exterior, and large "vaporetti" (ferries), it's an experience that cannot be captured in a photo or even a video. The number 1 vaporetto goes down the main Canal from the bus & train stations all the way to the Piazza San Marco - site of St. Mark's Basilica and some really expensive outdoor cafes with cheezy orchestras. So Cam and I caught that there, and marvelled at the canal-side palaces, the easy-on-the-eye Rialto bridge, and the uniqueness of the place.

Found some cheap pizza, pasta and gelati - i love this country - and proceeded to get lost in San Marco, San Polo, and probably all the other parts of Venice, before eventually making our way back to the campsite and crashed out after a beer or two.

Next day we went to two small islands, a short vaporetto ride from Venice, and with far less tourists and some really great stuff. Murano is renowned for it's glass making, and so we checked out a glass factory with a 'master craftsman' making a decent small horse in about 10 seconds from a 1400 degree blob of glass, and were very impressed until we saw about 1000 of them in the gift shop next door and realised that he must have been making small horses for years 02 St. Mark's Basilica
02 St. Mark's Basilica
 . After a brief walk around Murano, which had a much more residencial feel than Venice, we jumped on another ferry to similarly-named Burano. Burano was probably my favourite part of greater Venice, with it's beautiful brightly coloured fisherman's houses lining the canals, lack of loud American tourists, and stunning scenery all over it's small area.

Met up with Brooksy back at St. Mark's, checked out the Basilica which had a ceiling of about 90% gold (in the religious style paintings that covered the surface), then went on a mission to get away from the tourists (of which there were about 10x more than yesterday - clearly other Europeans just pop into venice for the weekend) and into a pizza place we had eyed off yesterday after dinner with 2 inch thick slices of margarita. Eventually found the place amongst the labyrinth of Venetian streets/canals, after 45 mins of wandering around trying to use the combination of a map with no street names or orientation to North, and Brooksy's mighty "Dr C" compass that had been so useful a few months ago in Cuba. Had a really good dinner with a nice Italian red on the banks of some canal, another gelato, and we were stuffed. Venice totally rocked, and definitely surpassed my expectations, I recommend it to anyone who happens to be in this part of the world (as long as it's not in the middle of northern hemisphere summer).
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