It was a little under 3 hours here by train today - and I was thrilled that both Florence and Venice train stations have their tracks at street level. No stairs!
If I thought it was striking to walk out of the Rome subway and see the Colosseum, imaging walking out of a train station and seeing... Venice. Water, boats, no roads or cars.
You would think that navigating (pardon the pun) a city like this for the first time would be hard - well I thought so - but it is amazingly simple. The bus line just uses boats. And the bus shelter floats. And the bus rams into the bus shelter.
A Vaporetto runs along the Grand Canal, and my stop was not far. The walking directions to the hotel were clear, and it was barely a 5 minute walk.
But imagine my surprise when I got off the Vaporetto and saw...
How do you make sense of a view like this, from the small courtyard of a hotel?
I haven't seen anything yet in Venice that I didn't want to photograph.
The sad thing is that it is yet another area with a lot of grafitti. I just don't understand this one.
Prices are definitely higher here, and it's easy to understand when you realize that everything has to be brought in by boat, then delivered by hand cart. My timing was a bit off here, but near the top of the steps on the Ponte Rialto, there is a man delivering 3 boxes of bananas. That's pretty labour intensive.
There are, of course, a lot of things geared to tourists, including these pizzas. They're supposed to look like little boats. Yeah - that makes me want to order one right away!
There are quite a few of these great old wooden water taxis. They look great, very glamorous, and for some reason make me think of Cary Grant.
This place is faded and peeling, like so many buildings here, but I'd love to see inside. I bet there are some amazing interiors here.
What do you do if the restaurant you want to go to is on the other side of a canal?
Would you believe this is the entrance to... a police station?
If you wander long enough, you end up in Piazza San Marco. Which is massive.
The Doge's Palace.
The Vaporetto ride back from San Marco to my stop has to be one of the most memorable parts of the trip. Amazing, beautiful old buildings!
I haven't done much today except explore and try to get my bearings. I'm too tired at this point to do anything ambitious. I can hardly keep my eyes open at this point so it will be an early night for me. The next 3 days should be pretty terrific, with good weather for at least tomorrow.
I'd encourage everyone to see this place, it's simply impossible to describe and still do it justice.
Wow Factor is at the max!
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