Sunday—>Monday. Our trip from Colorado Springs to Venice was uneventful. We went straight to the ship and when our room was ready we unpacked and took a much needed nap. We had thought about eating a quick supper and then going into Venice for a stroll. Fortunately we had decided that we were too tired to do that. It was a good decision because a nasty thunderstorm made the weather pretty miserable for 30+ minutes. A water taxi in that weather would have not been fun.
Tuesday. The next morning we took a water taxi to San Marco (Saint Mark), the old cathedral on in Venice. Venice, according to our gondola driver (more about that later) is really 100+ islands connected by bridges. Their is an amazing amount of boat traffic around Venice. It makes sense when you realize 70,000 people live on the islands plus many thousands of tourists visit every day and there are no cars. Everything is done by boat. Below is a picture from our water taxi. You can see 5 other boats of various kind in the water around us. As we wandered the city we saw delivery boats, trash boats, and lots of taxis.
The entrance to Saint Mark’s Cathedral. The line was so long we chose to not go inside.
We wanted to take a gondola ride since that seems like the thing to do in Venice. Here are some pictures from our time in the gondola.
Venice is probably the only city in the world that has gondola jams. The drivers (pilots ?) must be strong to propel the boat and agile as they have to duck going under the bridges.
Most of the canals are quite narrow. Notice the water mark. Our gondola driver told us the tide was out and in a few hours the water would be where the high water mark is. On the right you can see a doorway that was usable years ago. But, as the city is slowing sinking, the lower floor of many building has become unusable.
Carol was disappointed he wasn’t wearing the traditional hat.
We stopped and had very nice lunch. Caprese salad, bruschetta, pasta and meatballs, and a 1/2 bottle of a nice Chianti.
We both think it would be nice to spend a few days on the island with no itinerary except to enjoy it. Some other time.