Walk like a Venetian...

July 18-20th

Welcome to Venice!  A land unlike any other, we came to find out.  Islands cut up by canals and connected by bridges... makes for a lot of walking up and over.  Tiring.  After spending a hectic two and a half days in Florence with only a two hour train ride for a break, we were already a bit exhausted.

I didn't even realize this, but Venice is an island.  Yep, you heard it right, an island.  I had always thought that Venice was just separated from the mainland by canals, but it is really surrounded by a huge lagoon.  The city is a large island shaped like a fish, cut into pieces by its many canals.  So now you know.

Left: View from the train tracks crossing the lagoon - my first gondola sighting!

After buying a map of the city (a necessity in this labyrinthian place) we stepped out of the train station, and were immediately on the Grand Canal.  This main canal runs through the center of the city, with its south end stopping exiting to the lagoon at St. Mark's Square.  

Left: View from train station of Grand Canal.  You can see an odd phenomenon of Italy on the central church facing the canal: screens with images in front of scaffolding.  I guess Italy had a lot of important facades, and they want to keep up the image at all times.

 

While crossing the grand canal, we had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into.  The bridges crossing this canal are much larger than any others, but even the small ones are rough with just a few steps, because there are so many! Even more so when you are carrying a heavy duffel bag and you are wandering about trying to find your apartment...

Left: Grand Canal (again)

Walking along the narrow streets, I was fascinated by the "water streets" all over the place.  They had just regular street signs, but instead of "Via...." they said "Rio..."  Unfortunately, the maps rarely said the canal names....

Left: River street, Rio Marin

We finally got to our apartment, and we were blown away by how nice it was.  We actually had a living room, kitchen, bath & two bedrooms that were nicer than our place in Rome.  What was even better was that our apartment was cheaper than the other group of us who were staying in a rundown hostel.  Our place was a little bit of a walk from the main sights (and therefore the noisy people) in a residential district, but we were still on one of the main islands, pretty close to the train station.

Left: My bedroom in Venice.  Ikea, much?

After finding our place to sleep, the next necessity was food.  We went looking for a grocery store through the most narrow streets I've ever been in.  They were more like hallways.  I guess that works when you only have pedestrians.  That was also weird, because I knew there were no cars in Venice, but there is nothing with wheels.  No scooters that come up behind you, or even bicycles.  I know it should be obvious, but it was a nice realization.

Left: Holding my camera up for a "eyes in the back of your head" shot.  You can see the top of my head at the bottom.  So narrow!

Typical Venice Facade along a canal: Three parts, the center section is open to allow for breezes, the two sides are closed rooms.  You can tell by the amount of windows.  Also, the second floor becomes the main living spaces (because the bottom floor floods so much). Pretty interesting, eh?  I remembered all that from Intro to Architecture class three years ago...

Left: Venetian facade (nice arches)

We were walking along the grand canal, and there were a ton of these party boats with blaring music heading down.  It just so happened that we came to Venice on one of their holidays (who knows what it's for) so all these boats were heading towards the Venice Lagoon just off St. Mark's to gear up for the fireworks show that night.  We watched them from the square, right next to the Doge's palace, and it was packed! - probably the best fireworks show I've ever seen, despite the obnoxious drunken Italians around us.  

Left: Party boats (complete with blaring music)

We met the other group of people traveling with us (there were nine of us in total) at the Ponte Rialto, which turned out to be the worst place to find anyone.  It is basically three bridges next to each other, with two lines of stores in between.  Complete madness.  I even lost the group for a while, and one guy didn't show up at all.  So we sent out a search party, and I was sent to St. Mark's square.

Left:  Ponte Rialto: beautiful, huge, and packed

-maybe because of the holiday?

My first view of St. Mark's was quite interesting, because rather than admiring the architecture, I was looking for a lost group member.  And there were a lot of people to look through.  But no luck.  On the way back, though, the guy with me and I got very turned around (easy to do when the canals do not follow straight lines - even the big ones) and we got lost ourselves.  You'd think the Ponte Rialto would be easy to find, when there are signs everywhere, but it's not true.  We finally made it back to the bridge 45 minutes late, everyone was mad, but the lost soul had been found.  So I guess it was a happy ending?

After re-grouping, we were setting out for a place for dinner, trying to decipher the winding pathways, and the best way to traverse them.  This was a common occurrence in Venice: get to a canal, look at the map, chose your direction, get to a canal...  So easy to get lost!

Left: the map will be our guide...

 

The typical Venice canal: narrow, curving, and gondola-filled.  Look at the gondolier kicking off the wall!  I never rode a gondola here (quite the expense) but maybe someday someone will pay for me...  I figure I have to give a reason to come back someday. 

Left: crossing a bridge (yet again), but the nice thing is that you get spectacular views down the canals (which is why the bridges are usually quite full with photographers)

We made the mistake of going to a restaurant with a menu in more than three languages (which Richard tells us to avoid) and the food was overpriced and not very good.  That seems to be typical in Venice.  Thankfully we had a pizza place right by our apartment with E1.50 slices... so we didn't go to a restaurant again.

After dinner we went to the fireworks display... then out to the waterfront promenade by the Accademia.  We stayed out pretty late... but the city was just winding up.  I saw so many families out at 2:00 in the morning, I couldn't believe it.  I could barely stay awake.  And we had an early morning the next day...

The next morning, we set out for the Biennale: an art exhibit that occurs every summer in south Venice, alternating between art & architecture (this year was art).  It was a long walk out there, but it had nice views of the Lagoon & Isola San Giorgio.  The exhibit was separated into pavilions that were designed by a specific country (with art installations inside) and then a main exhibit hall.  We ended up spending almost the entire day there, there was so much to see.

Left: Isola San Giorgio in the distance

This was in one of my favorite pavilions (as far as the art installation - the building itself wasn't that interesting).  It was set up like a disaster scene, like someone with anger issues had terrorized the house or something, I'm not really sure.  But the dining table was broken down the middle, there was an upholstered armchair that appeared to be melting, and this staircase that had broken off.  It was strange to walk through, because it really felt like someone's house.

Left: Danish pavilion art installation

The other art installation in a pavilion that I really enjoyed was Russia's.  Their theme was "Victory over the Future" and it was pretty intense.  So much so, that I couldn't get a good picture of it.  It had a compilation of artists that were each so unique, that made it more interesting.  Kind of hard to describe.

This image is of the Nordic pavilion (Finland, Sweden, Norway) and it was my favorite pavilion building.  The art installation was strange (which was a common occurrence that day) but I loved the structure.  Perhaps a trip to Finland is in order...  Not only did it have trees growing up into the roof, but all the living spaces were sunken in to the floor.  The living room was a few steps down, and the bed was in a box in the floor (so the top of the bed was even with the floor).  Quite interesting...

Left: Nordic Pavilion

This was my favorite art installation, and it was in the main exhibition hall.  At first glance, it appears to be a spiral staircase.  Pretty typical.  But you can also hear a faint clicking noise.  So looking closer, and you notice that the handrail is actually film reel, winding its way up and down the stairs to the projector, which is projecting a movie on the wall behind.  I was so mesmerized by the reel that I barely noticed the movie at all.  How do you think of something like that?

Left: Film-reel staircase

The main room of the exhibition hall was pretty nice, too.  There was just a ton of string (although it was more durable than string) criss-crossing in the room and forming spheres.  I guess it is supposed to represent a black-widow's web, which creeps me out just thinking about.  It was really fun to walk through, and being a short person helps in that way.  It constantly changes as you move throughout.

Left: walking in a spider web...

There was a huge building dedicated to Venice itself, which is known for its glass (especially Murano Island, just across the Lagoon).  So they had these crazy glass sculptures outside the building.  I really wanted to get something like this to take home, but I didn't want to pay the intense shipping costs... so I bought glass jewelry, instead.  Nice compromise.

Left: Venetian glass exhibit

Back to St. Mark's after the Biennale.  We were completely grossed out by what people do to these pigeons.  Okay, so I know that the birds are everywhere, but do you need to call them towards you with food?  We even saw one kid laying on the ground with the birds hopping all over him.  So gross!  Squirrels are one thing... but pigeons?  

Left: Mother-daughter day-out in St. Mark's Square (mother photographing daughter's contraction of rare bird disease... priceless)

I didn't mean to make it black-and-white, but my camera liked to switch back and forth sometimes (because I would accidentally turn the dial) but it is quite dramatic.

We spent the rest of the afternoon mask-browsing, because other than glass, masks are the most prolific souvenir throughout Venice, so I had to have one... This one place we went to, the girl was making the masks in the corner of the store, so I knew the one I got was hand-made, as well as beautiful.  I should have taken a picture of it... Is the suspense killing you?

After an early night the night before (we just stayed in the apartment, and got an entire huge pizza for E10.oo from the nearby pizza place) we woke up early to see some architecture.  First stop: a gate designed by Carlo Scarpa, who really likes his angles and machinery.  This gate is the entrance to one of the Biennale exhibits that are scattered through the city.  He is an architect that I didn't know much about before, but I am slowly to appreciate quite a bit...

Left: Carlo Scarpa gate

Next we headed just around the corner to the Calatrava bridge, which was just completed last year.  His bridges are quite common to me, since we have one in Redding, but this one is quite unusual.  It spans directly to the Train station over the Grand Canal, but rather than a sloped pathway over (it looks pretty flat) it is only flat on the stop, with ramp-stairs at the edge, like most bridges throughout the city.  It also has the typical skeletal structure underneath, and frosted glass tiles in some parts.

Left: Calatrava bridge

After checking out of our apartment (leaving my sunglasses behind) and waiting at the train station for an hour to leave our bags there for the day, we didn't know how we wanted to spend the rest of our time.  We figured we should take a boat somewhere (because the city is built on water) so we decided upon San Giorgio.  The water bus is kind of expensive, but it was a good way to see the city.  I didn't get any pictures from the boat because my memory card was filling up, and all my batteries were dead - it was quite the weekend!  We got to the island right as the church was closing, so we got a few shots inside, then walked along the waterfront.  Then we headed back to St. Mark's for pizza (expensive, but look at the view - back to where we came from)

Above:  View of Isola San Giorgio from our lunch table, not too shabby...  I also got a nice sketch in while I was waiting for my pizza, but I'll have to show you the real thing.

Ahh, Venice.  Quite an unusual city, but it is a good place to visit.  I didn't see much of the architecture interiors, ( I didn't even go inside St. Mark's Basilica - the line was long and in the sun) but it was nice to explore and get a good feeling for the spirit of the city.  Oh yes, and I took home quite a few bug bites as well.  Apparently a city becomes a breeding ground for mosquitos when you build it on water, hmm...