Gondolas, Gargoyles and Gelato

There was no ambiguity about where we were as our Emirates chauffeurs piled our luggage (and us) into the water taxi for the last part of the journey from the airport to the Concordia Hotel in the centre of Venice just off St Mark's Square.

On the Water Taxi

We wended our way through small, narrow canals and under low bridges dodging gondolas and barges along the way moving ever closer to the Grand Canal which is just like the main road through a city...except it's an aqua road. The "captain" kept reminding us not to all sit on the one side as we shifted about the taxi "rubber necking" at all the sights and sites and destabilising the taxi!

The Grand Canal

Travel over so many time zones so quickly messes with your circadian rhythms so I was up quite early the next morning and "sent" out to gets some early morning shots. It made for a long day but provided another perspective of Venetian life only early birds experience......watching all the produce deliveries, the hotel linen being hoisted up from boats and barges parked up little canals, and the cleaners sweeping the cobbles in preparation for the hordes of visitors just hours away.

Winter Dawn over Venice

The view across the Grand Canal with blurry gondolas bobbing in the foreground and the light trails from ferries and delivery boats worming across the shot.

Saint Mark's Basilica - 5.30am

We have been known to travel "off the beaten" track but we are not too proud to do the tourist thing when it is part of exploring special places in the world .......which are usually touristy exactly because they are special. We visited the Doges Palace in St Mark's Square (very opulent) and St Marco Basilica, the Bridge of Sighs and the Rialto Bridge.

The Bridge of Sighs from the outside. Inside is quite depressing.

The Rialto Bridge in the background over the Grand Canal. It was the first bridge connecting both sides of Venice allowing pedestrian traffic.

The Icons were worth visiting but really, immersing ourselves in the hustle, the bustle and the vibrance of Venice was what makes it special. The lanes and crowds (not as busy as summer though), getting lost and finding gelato in a lane .....and the shops and the restaurants......it was a bit of a culture hit, intense and overwhelming to  the senses........which all goes to make the memories we take away with us.

We found that Venice is touristy, even in the low season of winter, but it is also quite unique and that is what we really enjoyed. There are many other cities based on canals...but not like this. In the heart of Venice it is pedestrians and boats only....no cars, bikes, pushbikes, skateboards ....just throngs of people and boats which has implications for everything about the  dynamics of the city. It is also very old, and its buildings are out of square, un-perpendicular and un-level (even undulating in places) with constant rising damp which keeps the locals living in the upper stories of their homes. And it has history which is preserved within its modern context ....and that is part of the reason it is worth the effort to see.

Only people born in Venice can be gondoliers.

It is a pedestrian city where you can become lost within minutes of leaving your hotel and we quite enjoyed the challenge and process of finding our way home and discovering small treasures along the way.....and the two Wendys seemed to find lots of treasures.....sparkly and otherwise.
The Italians are smartly dressed....they have style and well developed design sense which  is reflected in their shop window dressings. Even the restaurants take pride in displaying their wares.

Window dressing promoting Carnivale masks - striking

Guess what kind of restaurant is here.

As well as a lot of walking (Wendy A tells us that we have done over 12K steps daily?) we made use of the Vaporetto (the aqua buses of Venice) to get around what is a far bigger place than we had imagined......and on our last full day we did the touristy thing and hired a couple of gondolas for a tour around the the back canals, under very low bridges, peeking into homes, offices and hotels being observers of Venetian life....and it was interesting and entertaining .......and over too soon.

Wendy & Mike in front in a tight turn.

A fitting finale to a wonderful stay in this very old, fascinating city.

Venice is one of the great visitor destinations in the world and .....we feel very fortunate to have experienced it, even briefly.