Wandering the City of Venice

The day started with the 7am bells pealing out across Venice.  With so many churches - and not all synchronised - it was a lovely sound for some minutes.

We started our exploration of the city by heading towards the Rialto area, soon coming across a little restaurant where we sat by the Grand Canal to enjoy coffee and croissants and watch the gondoliers manoeuvre their boats in and out.

Built on the marshy islands in the lagoons around the Po and Plave rivers, the city's beginnings date back to the consecration of the church of San Giacomo in 421 AD.  Between the 9th and 12th century it developed into a city-state and large commercial centre with boats plying the Adriatic as well as the Mediterranean Sea and dominating the trade in salt.  By the 13the century it housed over 36,000 sailors and 3,300 ships.  The most wealthy and influential families lived in palaces along the Grand Canal which was then as it is today a very busy waterway.

Breakfast over, we explored the Rialto, crossing the famous bridge and decrying the use of major advertising billboards on the hoarding surrounding the repairs of the bridge.  We passed the myriad of shops selling the ubiquitous murano glass - lollies; animals and jewellery being the most common - as well as a range of scarves, tea-towels etc and marvelled that there were enough tourists to ensure the purchase of all this 'stuff'!  Unfortunately the famous Rialto markets were closed but Di was able to give us some great descriptions of her visit the previous morning.

Heading back towards the Piazzale Roma we again wandered down little laneways that opened into larger squares where families enjoyed the space offered to commune with neighbours and supervise children on bikes, scooters and playing soccer or tend the community garden.  A gelato was in order to assist us with this pursuit!

It was around the Piazzale Roma, where the major train and bus stations are situated that we saw the only fast food outlets - fortunately without the loud advertising that generally designates their venues.  We started our Grand Canal tour from here, the first stop, and were fortunate enough to get seats in the bow, enabling us to see the sights as our boat slowly wound its way to San Marco Square.  While several of the buildings along the canal have been restored, many are showing the ravages of time, however all contributing to the charm that is Venice.  The waterway is remarkably clean and we soon realised that in Venice boat is the transport of choice as we watched families negotiating the smaller canals and waterways to undertake their daily activities.

                         

The Square was bustling, even at this late stage in the 'season'.  The queues for the Bell Tower and the Basilica were extremely long, so we contented ourselves with viewing things from the outside and enjoyed people-watching in the square.  

Our meanderings now took us in the direction of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum with stops to enjoy a lovely salad lunch - we certainly take for granted the availability of fresh fruit and vegetables in Australia - and a spot of shopping.  The walk took us over the wooden bridge at Academe - built in the 1930s as a temporary bridge - and now very popular with tourists as it provides a perfect spot for some of the postcard views of Venice.  The Museum lived up to expectation, however we were most amused by the seriousness of many of the others viewing the paintings and sculptures.  The 'over-the-top' explanations provided for some of the modern art pieces caused us quite a laugh!

The day finished with dinner in our local square.