Well, I finally made it to Venice. I think Jett would be happy for me – our plans to visit Venice at the end of TC1 in 2018 had to be aborted due to Jett’s health. Since then it has been near the top of my bucket list. I was very much looking forward to these two days.
But when I woke up this morning I realized that the weather was going to be far from ideal. The forecast was for a solid overcast both days with occasional showers. Oh, well. Make the best of it.
After a complimentary breakfast at the hotel Marlene and I walked 10 minutes to the Mestre train station and, after figuring out how to get tickets (with some good advice from a fellow traveler at breakfast), we boarded a train for a 15-minute ride into Venice.
Venice is a city of canals, with no automobiles (and, somewhat to my surprise, no bicycles). Walking, water taxis, ferries and gondolas are the only ways to get around. We favored walking on this day as we didn’t want to miss anything. So we set off on foot, headed for the Piazza San Marco. And we got there… after 4.5 hours of not missing anything. Especially shopping. Venice is one big pedestrian shopping mall. Lots of high-end clothing store, tons of restaurants, about billion gelaterias (basically ice cream shops) and many souvenir and craft shops. Lots of things for first-time visitors to look at. And we looked at them all.
We learned that Venice has over 400 bridges. I think we crossed about 50 of them on our way to San Marco. And Marlene found a casino which, thankfully, was not open.
There is one large canal – the Grand Canal – and hundreds of small canals. A couple of main streets and hundreds of small, meandering alleys. I think one would have to live here for at least a year before being able to get around without a GPS.
Venice is also a city of churches and we visited several of those in our first 5 hours there. Excuse me for not identifying each one – they kind of melted together in my mind.
One church that I can identify for you is St Mark’s Basilica which we saw when we finally got to the Piazza San Marco. But we couldn’t go in – entry is limited to tours only. Too many tourists, I guess.
We walked down to the southern edge of the piazza, to the Grand Canal. We got some good shots down there. It was a bit foggy with some drizzle by the time we got there, so we decided to head back.
The walk back involved some more window shopping but took only about 90 minutes instead of the 4.5 hours. And we took a different route, so we saw different shops, different alleys and different bridges. And Marlene chatted up a couple of gondoliers.
We took the train back to Mestre and had dinner of bread and cheese in our room. I blogged some and we went to bed very tired. We had logged over 20,000 steps – over 10 miles of walking.
And my back was aching. This is beginning to concern me. I used to be able to walk long distances with no pain. No more. I think I have some sciatica. Not good.