Venice: The City of Canals
Venice is probably a recurring must-visit place for a lot of people’s lists. It was never really part of mine, but someone told me that I couldn’t go to Italy without setting foot in the place, so I did. By this time, I had seen a lot of canal cities and at first glance Venice didn’t look much different from them.
Since the bed and breakfast we booked was a bit far from the tourist spots, we were able to really see a different side of a Venice, the one that isn’t bustling from every angle with tourists. It’s also important to note that this B&B was the most expensive accommodation that I had stayed in during my whole trip to Italy, and that’s including hostels. I can only imagine how much more expensive it would have been if I had stayed somewhere near the center. Fresh bread from small bakeries, teenagers, walking to their schools and people riding their boats to work. It made me wonder what it would have been like to live in the world famous city, to wake up to a view like this every day of your life.
Since everything was generally expensive, especially the water because they have to bring it in from the outside, the best part of my trip to Venice was actually just walking around and getting the feel of the place. If no one has ever told you this yet, maps are useless when you go here. The arrows pointing to landmark places actually take you in circles. It’s actually just better to look for a local and try to understand how they give directions: cross this bridge from this tiny street into another tiny street. Either that you simply walk around until you reach where you need to go.
Venice in real life is a bit more rugged than it is in most pictures I’ve seen before I came. It’s not a clean and pristine looking as it does in photos. There are a lot of interesting street art, most of the the streets are winding and tiny, and a lot of places are jam-packed with tourists. Despite all this though, I’ve found that it’s still charming in its own right.
I’ll make a separate post on Venetian masks, Murano glass and other things you can take home, because I believe that there is so much to say about them that they deserve one. I think one of the regrets that I have on my visit to Venice was that I was not able to see how Murano glass was made. I’ve heard that it’s a beautiful artistic process that Venice prides itself in, and I can only hope to be able to see it if I would be given the chance to return.
Gondolas inside the city seems like it’s more of a tourist thing than it is for locals. They’re incredibly expensive and most people, including us, just walk our way through. There are big taxi boats that are engine-powered, but we weren’t able to ride that either. Personally, I’d want to go back and experience riding the gondolas through the canals, but preferably when I’m on my honeymoon or with a large group of people who I can split the bill with. It’s one of those bucket list things I intentionally left out, just so I have a valid reason to return.
Piazza San Marco was beautiful, and going quite early in the morning (around 8am) is probably one of the best decisions we made because the place was near-empty and we could take photos of places that would normally have lines of tourists. They say during the rainy season, the floods make it difficult for the locals to walk around here.
In fact, I’ve read several articles and reports that suggest that Venice is sinking faster every year and the rising sea levels aren’t helping either. The reason for this is that the island sits on top of sedimentary soil and the general plate tectonics under Adriatic plate. The government took decades to be able to figure out a solution to this by building underwater mobile gates that spew air out when the water rises above a certain level, but even that is not enough to be able to completely solve the problem.
This gate in the next picture is actually an entrance to a bell tower where people paid around 6 Euros to see the view of Venice from the top. Later in the day, there was a long line snaking from this entrance. If there’s anything you should take away from this post is that you should go here early. You can appreciate everything more when there are less tourists blocking all the views.
