Caught the bus into Venice this morning crossing the 3.8km Liberty Bridge ( Ponte della Libertà) and then bought a 12-hour ticket on the waterbus enabling us to travel all day along the major canals.
This is an amazing city. It stretches across 117 small islands in the marshy Venetian Lagoon along the Adriatic Sea. The saltwater lagoon stretches along the shoreline between the mouths of the Po (south) and the Piave (north) Rivers.
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| Venice from the Campanile |
The Republic of Venice was a major maritime power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and a staging area for the Crusades and the Battle of Lepanto, as well as a very important centre of commerce (especially silk, grain and spice trade) and art in the 13th century up to the end of the 17th century. This made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history. It is also known for its several important artistic movements, especially the Renaissance period. Venice has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and it is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi.
Initially, we caught the waterbus from Piazzale Roma along the Grand Canal to Piazza San Marco which appears to be the place that everyone has to go. And everyone was there. Venice was very crowded today. They say that the Basilica di San Marco is impressive and would have been good to have a look but the queue (about 200 metres long) was enough to frighten us off. The queue wasn’t too long to go up its bell tower, the Campanile, which is in the middle of the square (it’s actually a replica as the original collapsed in 1902). The views from the top (100m up in a lift) over the city were pretty amazing.
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| more from the Campanile |
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| The Grand Canal |
We had a coffee at Caffé Florian, a haunt of people like Wagner, Thomas Mann and Hemingway. It was special and an orchestra was playing but €30 for two cups of coffee??
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| Coffee at the Florian |
At the top of the other bell tower in the piazza, the Toree dell’Orologio, we watched (and heard) the Mori (Moors) figures strike the bell to inform us it was 11 o’clock. That was cute.
There is a lot of talk about Venice drowning. I guess they aren’t too impressed with global warming!! And certainly, while we were in the square water was flooding certain sections as the tide rose – it actually came up through the drains. People had to use ‘duckboards’ to get into the Basilica. There was information up describing what they were doing to address the problem. I feel they might have a challenge ahead.
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| High tide at the Basilica |
We wandered through the streets admiring the architecture until we came to the Grand Canal again just near the Ponte di Rialto (built in the late 16th Century), the bridge you see in all the photos of Venice. Had some lunch and then caught a waterbus to Lido, the island south of the main island. We noticed on the map that it had some beaches so decided to have a look. The beach was pretty popular today too, with lots of people enjoying the sun. It’s a pretty warm day and the beach did have sand (brown sand). It was Jilly’s sort of beach – very small waves. There were little huts on the beach but nothing like we saw the other day.
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| Gondolas were everywhere! |
Caught the waterbus back to the main island and then the bus back to the motel. We were a bit worried that we might not know where to get off but the bus driver was quite helpful.
There’s a laundry at the motel (free) so we did a bit of washing before having the hotel's buffet dinner - and very nice it is.
Today is our last day in Italy. We call into Verona tomorrow but after that, we are on our way to Austria (for one night) and then on to Germany.
