9/2/2010
Venice
We woke up this morning on a mission--a mission to do laundry. We were now at the half-way point of our journey and we only set out with enough clothes to make it this far.
Despite having a map and the early morning light, navigating through Venice proved to be a pretty tricky endeavor. We never got completely lost, but we had to check the map pretty regularly. If you've never been, this aerial photo might give you a clue why it's so crazy!
Navigatting the streets of Venice trying to find the laundromat.
There are no cars in Venice if you ignore the area near the train station. Boats are the local people’s cars but most people just walk. The roads are more like paths since some of them are only wide enough to pass another person. The best way to navigate is to go from campo to campo. These are open spaces, often in front of a church, and serve as great landmarks as well as a good place to stop and reorient yourself. Without these you’d be left to wander the small alleys and cross the countless bridges in a tight maze through the city.
One of the many campos in Venice.
We grabbed breakfast and found the laundromat. Mission accomplished. With laundry done, we headed back to the hotel to drop off our clean clothes and head back out to do our sightseeing.
We found it!
First we went to see the Rialto Bridge, one of the oldest bridges in Venice. It crosses the Grand Canal and was originally built of wood, but it has been rebuilt in stone and is now covered in gift shops (and tourists w/ cameras). We took the opportunity to do a little window shopping and take some photos ourselves.
Rialto Bridge, the oldest bridge to span the Grand Canal.
From here, we walked to Piazza San Marco (St Mark’s Square). The square is huge and was crowded with tourists. The basilica is one of the main attractions of Venice but we didn’t go in because of the crowds. Instead, we just cruised the water side and checked out all the old architecture from the outside.
St. Mark's Campanile, the bell tower in St. Mark's Square.
We bought lunch and ate in St. Mark’s Square and watched the people and the millions of pigeons. It was a pretty warm day and it felt good to sit on the cool stone steps in the square.
Tracy doing some window shopping.
We continued to walk around the city through random alleys and campos. We didn’t have any particular destination or direction in mind. We had been walking all day and eventually, we decided to make our way back to the hotel for a quick break. We must have climbed a combined 30-40 flights of stairs if you counted up all the bridges we crossed. It felt so good to just take off our shoes and sit down for a minute.
More Venetian architecture.
Next, we took the water bus to Murano (the island city famous for its glass blowing). It was very similar to Venice as far as water ways and streets go but now every store was selling glass. There were tons of really neat (and very expensive) glass things: chandeliers, clocks, miniatures, plates, vases, artistic décor, etc. You name it and they made it in glass. One store we stopped at had a glass blowing demonstration, so we got to sit and watch a guy create a couple vases and sculptures.
A gondola parked in a canal.
We ate dinner back in Venice at a restaurant that is situated on the Grand Canal at the base of the famous bridge we visited earlier. The food was good, but nothing too exciting. The real draw was the view and atmosphere of being there in Venice on the canal (our table was literally 2 feet from the water’s edge) and watching the boats and gondolas cruise by. This photo from Wikipedia actually shows our table (it's the one on the far left with the lady sitting at it.
The view of the Grand Canal at dinner (taken while seated at our table).
A short, slow, after dinner stroll brought us back to our hotel room and once again the relief of dropping our bags and taking off our shoes. We debated going back out to get some crepes for dessert, but our sore feet and legs begged us to stay so we just called it a night.
Our hotel room in Venice
A neat statue we found. I'm not sure who it is.
Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute (Basilica of St Mary of Health).
Another view of the Grand Canal.
A fountain in the middle of a campo.
A very common sight in Venice.
5 comments:
The pic of your hotel room shows an open window with what looks like a wall right outside. Were the buildings that close?
Venice looked like a great adventure btw :)
Aunt Janice
Ya, most "streets" in Venice are skinny enough that you can touch the buildings on both sides at the same time if you stretch your arms out. So, yes, the building across the street was quite close. :-D
Yeah, sweet room! You guys captured some magnificent shots!! It was actually kind of torturous looking at them all :)
I give you... tracker.icerocket.com! Super easy to add to blogger and you can track your hits.
But I have been enjoying your posts. :)
Like the hotel rooms. Is the water in canal as dirty as they say? You guys make me tired with all the walking and climbing. Aunt Sally
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