Venice

Photoblog

So yeah, Venice is pretty amazing. It is the best example of a city we have come across so far where the tourist aspect almost adds to the enjoyment of the city. It’s difficult to explain, but it just seemed like all us tourists were supposed to be there. The city is something unique in the world that people want to see and you don’t mind sharing it. The city has grown around the tourists and it was difficult for me to think that the city had lost any of its uniqueness because of that. After all, it is a freaking city with WATER FOR ROADS!

I wasn’t kidding about that view from the earlier post being from our hotel window. Chizzy outdid herself once again and got us rooms with Grand Canal views right at the freaking Rialto Bridge. We were impressed.

The city stayed pretty active all night. George and Peggie helped make sure of that with a couple late night trips to the Rialto Bridge themselves.

The city itself is an island. I always just thought it was a city on the coast that was built out in the water. Anyway, you have to take a boat just to get to the city and the most convenient option is a water taxi. There is a public transportation system as well, but the boats were almost all jam packed like this one.

In the comfort of a water taxi.

We had three nights there and it was the perfect amount of time. The city is not too large and you can walk it in several hours, but it was so easy to get away from the crowds very quickly if you wanted. There is a crazy maze of narrow concrete and brick streets that wind throughout the city and you can get anywhere on foot. We found the map pretty useless because no street seemed to run for more than 30 yards and if you really wanted to know exactly where you were at each turn you’d never have a chance to stop and look around at the sights.

It was surprisingly difficult to come across a dead-end. I think this was one.

This is an entrance to The Arsenal. It was the fortress/harbor for the building and repairing of military ships back in the day. It was still pretty cool, but nobody was around at all.

There were a few monasteries scattered throughout the island. We found this monk near the one at Campo San Francesco Della Vigna.

Of course, it was also very easy to find the crowds as well.

The Rialto Market. This was a great strip and we actually found some of the best deals on souvenirs in this massively popular market.

St. Mark’s is the primary tourist site and the square was always totally packed. There was a huge line to get in so we skipped going in.

However, a trip up the tower in the square had a shorter line and I think these photos were worth the wait.

David Gilmour of Pink Floyd fame was doing two nights in the square on the weekend we were there. We did not know this beforehand and we did not get tickets.

We got very lucky with the weather. There were only a couple times we got caught in any rain. It rained during the night a couple times and we actually had a very sunny and hot day. The city did not smell at all. We’d heard a couple warnings about this before we left, but the rain kept the place completely fresh and clean.

Our hotel is the one on the far left. We were having a great dinner here at the restaurant across the way.

The contest for this post is to see who can come closest to explaining what happen between the following two related photographs.

Start – “La-la-la-la-la”

Finish – “We’ll send somebody right up”

Did the gondola rides. It really was great, but of course you are going to get the whole commentary because I know that is what keeps our audience enraptured. You have to ride the gondolas in Venice. It is the quintessential experience of Venice. You know you are going to do it. They know you are going to do it. Everybody knows that everybody is going to do it. So why doesn’t somebody step in and figure out a way to make it feel just a tiny bit less like you are encountering a car dealer on the street when you want to ride one? That’s my humble question.

So until this question is addressed I must add one exception to what I said earlier about the tourism blending nicely with the city and culture. The award for “Attraction Most Likely To Remind You That You Are A Tourist” has to go to the gondola rides. On the last night there I took one out with Chizzy and George and Peggie took one out for themselves as well. There are no prices listed but from the information we were able to piece together with minimal effort and legwork looked like it would be about 100 Euro for 45 minutes or so. I’m only listing the price here to give you a bit of personal context. Your limits may obviously vary. Anyway, it is less about the price and more about the experience that I am trying to convey here. So we had been watching gondolas launch unendingly from right in front of our hotel for two days and we knew the drill. Walk up to gondola area, converse with gondola driver, and finally seal the deal. So anyway, the price was more than we had heard and the time was less than we heard. Of course there were other options, but that wouldn’t include “all the islands” (all quotes are real) and would be too short. Certainly you want the “five star treatment”? So let’s run down our options.

1. Avoid awkward haggling, pay the price, and enjoy the ride
2. Choose the price option you had hoped for and take the shorter ride... knowing you will forever wonder what the “full tour” would have been like.
3. Haggle the price which is probably standard practice and save yourself a few bucks. However, the context of this option is the fear of awkward cross cultural issues joining forces with the fear of talking to people that would ruin any chance of enjoying the ride.

So, we chose 1 and we enjoyed the ride. The real problem was with the drivers. It sounds pretty cool and mysterious that you can only be a gondola driver if it is passed down to you through your family. If you are chosen to carry on the gondola driving tradition, you go to private school and learn how (because it certainly looks like a real skill the way they control the boats). Essentially, we just got a couple of Italian dudes to row us around. Despite our driver being a 7th generation gondola driver, he was just an Italian dude living in Venice and raking in a ton of dough off people just like you. They couldn’t sing. They talked to each other in Italian while giving us our rides.

George was smart enough to caputure one of them in photo. Am I alone in thinking it is strange for a gondola driver to pose for a photo this way?

It really was a blast though. How did that dude land that chick?

We had a fantastic time and we are pretty sure that George and Peggie did as well. Here they are on the Rialto Bridge.

Peace out

P.S. – If anybody is going to be seeing Peggie and George anytime soon, could you please print this out for them? They might be Internet-less for a while during the hectic new house move and they might want to make sure they have been fairly portrayed.