Lost in Venice
We had decided to walk to our hotel in Venice once we arrived at the train station. It is dark outside but well lit. Putting our hands in our pockets to avoid any hassles with pick-pockets, we set off. The Rick Steves guide book gives a bare-bones map so we try to make our way with that. The hotel is in an area fairly close to St Marks Square. We end up too much to the west end of the island. We then end up too much toward the center. We finally get to a square near our hotel. Where is the bridge leading to this hotel? Where is the church “on the left”?. We see a church to the right. We are lost again! We went too far into the square. The church we are looking for is lost among buildings that are just as decorated as it is. We find it and just over a bridge, there is the hotel! Yeah!
We got kind of tripped up lost on the way to the restaurant we wanted to go to, not too much tripped up but a little. We stumbled our way into finding St. Marks Square. We found our way back to the hotel alright once we ran into a familiar looking back-alley square. Next day, we only got lost 2 times, finding our way back to the train station to start a boat tour on the Grand Canal, and later that evening on purpose to go where we haven’t gotten lost before – to the eastern area of the island. It was fun!
There are no cars in Venice. The streets (if you can call some of those barely-squeeze-a-human-through alleys a street) wind everywhere and dead end at buildings or canals. The canals are all over the place! If a person likes, they may step right into the water since they could fall in or takes some steps into it. These steps leading into the water are all over the place too. Bridges, of every size and description, abound willy-nilly in a very haphazard way. The buildings all around are at least 5 stories high so sunshine is optional in those small alleys mentioned previously. Everything is very old and highly decorative. One thing both of us liked was the buildings and roads weren’t “done up” for tourists. Things were old and looked it. No fresh paint jobs. No refurbished housing. If the side of a major tourist attraction had rotted bricks on it and moldy paint..great. They did make sure old buildings didn’t fall down but that is about it. They did refurbish the Doges Palace (Dukes palace) a long time ago but it still looks very old.
Wine is cheap here! 1 euro a glass if you get the house red! Appetizers are to die for! We made a meal out of them because they are also inexpensive.
We did go into St. Marks Cathedral, the Doges Palace, and the Correr Museum. All of them were extremely ornate! The Cathedral is impossible to describe other than MAJOR decor and a “moorish feel”. The ceilings in the Doges Palace were so highly decorated, they could have been on the walls of any museum or castle. They weren’t just painted, they were 3-d with “frames” and scrollish stuff in between all the masterpieces. The Correr was full of statues and historic things from Venice’s past.
There is really no way for me to describe the architecture of any of the buildings in Venice. They have to be seen. We will have photos burned on a disk but as of now, we have yet to find the facilities to be able to put them on our flickr site. Hopefully soon.
Write more later,
Dan
P.S. Next stop (and we are already here but don’t have the time to write more now) is Siena.
Tags: Europe, Venice
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