After a good night's sleep with the breeze of the sea, we woke up to another gorgeous day. We decided to stay in the morning on the beach. After breakfast we went for a walk. Although it was a Saturday the beach was very calm. We sat a bit in the sun and I also was able to go for a swim in the pool and do some training laps.
Although Venice waited it was difficult to leave the pool and beach. We eventually took the bus that took us to the port where we caught the boat to Plaza San Marco one of the most well known sites in Venice. We bought a ticket that covered all public transport for 12 hours. Great deal and highly recommendable if you come to Venice, rather than worrying about buying tickets all over. I am sure it is also cheaper.
The boat ride was a bit chilly and on the way we saw a huge ship leaving Venice.
We arrived at about 2:30pm and took a stroll seeing the masses (amazing how many people were there), taking pictures and being totally flabbergasted at the windows of the shops. Lots of color and creativity abound everywhere. Although Paris had more people, Venice felt much more crowded.
We had lunch in a small restaurant close to San Marcos Basilica. Paula (as I did not enjoy it so much) enjoyed a plate with 7 different foods typical of Venice. Too fishy for me. I had a salad. For desert we had a cafe parfait.
We then started our 2 hour tour I had seen in a book, however by the pace we were going at, to observe everything and take pictures it would take us much longer. We did take lots of great pics though.
One of the things we noticed is that you cannot walk in Venice in a straight line as we have to constantly be shifting direction due to canals. I was happy I had downloaded an app with Venice map. It also looked at gps coordinate and overlay that on top of map so we knew where we were and where to go.
In the end I found Venice exactly as I expected from seeing so many movies, but I found it much more crowded than I expected. No doubt a city that deserves a visit but not one of my favorite cities. Paula on the other hand enjoyed it and liked it more than I did.
Prices are outrageous. I had been warned but still got a surprise. A gondola ride is now 80 Euros for 30 minutes. Highway robbery.
Although always crowded we loved the bridges. Rialto is the biggest and most well known. Traffic underneath it and around is crazy.
We took the vaporetto from Rialto bridge. A vaporetto is a waterbus. There are 19 scheduled lines that serve locales within Venice, Italy, and travel between Venice and nearby islands, e.g., Murano and Lido. The name, vaporetto, could be translated as "little steamer", and refers to similarly purposed ships in the past that were run by steam. These steamers are great and necessary in Venice as the deep canals prohibit the building of underground railways, and there is no space for overground trains, leaving the canals as the only viable rapid transport system. Our first stop was Ferrovia where we had dinner in a terraza overlooking the canal.
We then took another vaporetto to Plaza San Marco and took some pictures of Venice at night.
In Plaza San Marco we took the ferry boat to Punta Sabbioni where we caught the bus back to our hotel. We arrived well past midnight. It had been another interesting day in our adventure.
Click HERE for all the pictures for day 13
Posted by Armando
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