After spending just 24 hours in Venice, there is one thing I know for certain – I want to come back. After all the movies, books and tales from friends I was still unprepared for this unique city.
We arrived by train and had been determined to arrive at our hotel in style in one of the beautifully timbered water taxis. This was not to be, however, as the official taxis we approached all said the tide was too high (our hotel later confirmed that it was difficult to reach on a very big tide but they could have brought us to within 100m if they had desired) and they couldn’t pass under some of the bridges. Luckily, we had also mapped out our route from a waterbus (vaporetto) stop (St Marco) and we found the hotel without too much difficulty – well, we did have to backtrack a couple of times – Venice does not have straight lane ways.
Staying in the San Marco district was fun as it was near many shops, bars and people watching vantage points. You quickly realise that without any streets or cars, Venice is a place made for walking and wandering. Around every corner there is a new delight and you are constantly crossing little bridges and twisting down side alleys. At night many laneways were lit with fairy lights – magical.
We took the ferry out to the island of Murano, famous for it’s glassworks. It was easy to take a waterbus to the Colonna stop (one of four on the island), which landed us in the middle of the shopping area and near some factories. It was too late in the day for any demonstrations but the trip was worth it just to window shop and to visit some glass showrooms. Apparently it can be very difficult to avoid the hard sell in some shops but being off season, we found no difficulty. After about an hour and a half of exploring, and purchasing some little trinkets, we walked to the Faro stop and took the ferry back to Venice.
The next morning we had been warned that the tide was going to rise to a particularly high level. The water was certainly covering the front step of our hotel’s side door, in fact the big wooden doors were sitting in the water! Many residents get about in Wellington boots – an incongruous sight when combined with fancy furs and expensive jewellery. We soon found out why when dragging our bags through town to the ferry wharf, water was over many passageways; we had to lift our bags onto raised walkways, that were slippery and slushy as the sleet began pouring down in time for our departure. The residents seem nonplussed, just going about their business and we witnessed more than one unhappy pooch being walked in the rain. It’s certainly a unique place.
There was so much more to see and do in Venice, we were already planning our return. A five day trip would be enough time to take in the sights and allow time for just soaking up the atmosphere of the place – add Venice to your list of ‘must visits’
Tips:
*Water taxis are expensive – an airport trip will cost around 110 euro and a train station to hotel in San Marco, around 60 euro – don’t pay more and don’t use unofficial taxis
*have a backup plan for transport – the water buses have many stops and most hotels in the San Marco region can be walked to in five to ten minutes from a stop. Have a map on hand too…we just cached the area on Google maps, which had the advantage of supplying us with a blue dot for our location despite not having any Internet access.
*if the tide is high, you risk wet feet and slippery walkways, bring wellies if you can (or buy some of the plastic overshoes available at many shops – prices varied between 6 and 12 euro so look around).
*it’s no fun dragging large bags about, minimise if you can. The railway station has a left luggage facility – for a fee of course.
*Avoid the restaurants near tourist hot spots, their prices may seem reasonable but we got stung at one place where the spaghetti was only ten euro but they charged 5 euro per person for water and 5 euros for soda. The 142 euro bill for a fairly ordinary meal was not met with joy.
Categories: City Breaks, europe, Historical sites
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