...Polo

Venice is an incredible place. I’m writing this from the train I just hopped to Rome having spent the last two days in this beautiful Adriatic marvel of a city. But I wouldn’t live here. And actually I don’t think any Italian people live here either. The tourist to resident ratio must be somewhere in the vicinity of 100:1. And that impacts the experience in a negative way, at least for me. I can’t say too much on this. I’m a tourist too. But it’s not just the number of tourists that bother me but the money grabbing trends that affect the touristy areas, like restaurants, shops, bars, etc. And since the entire island is touristy, there are very few places you can go without someone trying to rip you off or anywhere to find a bit of quiet. Also, Venice is a place you go only if you have money. Or it’s a place you stay for a little while if you have money. For budget travelers, this place isn’t ideal because there is almost no way to live cheaply, to save money like you can in any other city. There are no cheap markets or shops (well there’s one supermarket hidden away in some alley but it took me a long time to find it). So Venice, for budget travelers, is a place you spend a day or two to get a sense of the place. If you don’t mind spending money though, this place is for you. Gondola drivers will sing to you in an evening stroll around the canals, waiters will serve you some of the best wine in the world, and you can take private boats anywhere in the city. I’d come back here someday if I’m made of money.

The entrance to my hostel hidden in the depths of Venice

A typical shot of a Venetian canal

But don’t get me wrong, Venice is amazing and is worth a visit. If I had more time and had planned a bit better, I would have been able to find these smaller, less touristy places around the island. And Venice really is an absolute miracle of architecture. There is a reason this place attracts so many tourists. It really is that beautiful.

The small plaza outside my hostel, an old Roman fountain in the center

Some more Venetian architecture, every building in the city looks like this

Back then to a couple of days ago when I first arrived. It was around three in the afternoon. I had just taken the train from Milan and I was very excited about Venice. Venice to me, before I arrived (and also afterward actually), brought about images of scenes from the Bond film, “Casino Royale”, towards the end of the film where Bond quits the service and takes a private sail boat into Venice with Vesper, his accountant and lover. It was a very romantic set of scenes. Of course things go poorly for Bond, they always do. But at least he was in Venice! I walked through the station, down the sloping steps and into this small square abruptly met by the Grand Canal. The square and surrounding buildings were colored marble white and the water in the canal was a milky turquoise color. Boats zipped around the water, picking up passengers, dropping them off, touring around. But they weren’t just boats. They were all those Italian luxury boats, the small, long ones with an open top, wooden panelling, and golden and silver trimming, with little Italian flags flying in the back and drivers with sunglasses and white collared shirts. My goal was to get to the hostel. I had read reviews of this hostel before booking, as I always do, and the only negative feedback that people left was that the hostel was really very hard to find. So I spent a lot of time preparing maps and going through the route in my mind ahead of time to avoid any confusion and extra laboring when I arrived. But, yeah, as I said yesterday I got lost. Pretty quickly too. And really lost.

Each wall featured unique windows, shutters, and here, a statue

The main tourist area along the harbor not far from my hostel

I hopped the water taxi, as was instructed, and was supposed to get off the boat at the San Zaccaria stop on the other side of the island. The grand canal makes a backwards “S” route through the middle of the island and my stop was at the end of the “S”. But the water taxis also go around the outside of the island as well. I hopped the boat going in the wrong direction. But I didn’t realize it. I disembarked at a stop that I thought I remembered reading was near to the stop that I was supposed to get off thinking that maybe it was smarter to get off here because I also thought that I had taken an express boat and was going to pass over San Zaccaria, if that makes sense. But, nope! I got off at a stop clear across the wrong side of the city. I also made one of the biggest errors you can make in navigation which is to keep going on, hoping you’ll be able to recognize something eventually. I did not recognize anything ever. But the city is so beautiful and I was so distracted by everything around me that I didn’t really care that I had no idea where I was going. But my pack was really getting heavy. And the sun was shining and the sky was warm and I was beginning to sweat which can be pretty unpleasant. Eventually I sat down on some steps and took out my computer which had a downloaded map of the city. I eventually oriented myself a bit and located myself on the southern edge of the city, pretty far from where I needed to be. Another hour or so of wandering through the back alley streets of Venice and I finally found my hostel.

Gondolas for hire in the harbor

The city was full of these small Madonna shrines in alleyways

The city of Venice can easily be characterized by its waterways and canals. As I said before, there are no roads in the city and therefore no cars, motorbikes, bicycles. You can either get around by boat (easily because there are so many canals that intercross and wind through the city that you can literally get anywhere from the water) or by foot. Most people get around by foot (boats are expensive). The widest pedestrian roads are still alleyways and hidden between encroaching ancient buildings. It is no surprise that people have a hard time finding the hostel. Five minutes of walking anywhere and you’re immediately lost again. Every alleyway has a name but they are all so short and change so frequently that it’s not very helpful. And if you don’t have a good map of the city (which I didn’t at first), then getting around is nearly impossible. Every canal is filled with dreamy gondolas and private yachts and hold that same creamy turquoise sea water as described before. They wind through dense neighborhoods and buildings are built right up to the edge of the canals. So you could hop out of your window and straight into a boat if you wanted to. Every building on the island is beautiful. Each is unique but they all have similar qualities such as small terraces with overhanging vines and flowers, ancient windows, shutters, and doors. Churches dot the island as do ancient bell towers and madonna shrines. Many small plazas are formed by intersecting alleyways and are centered around ancient Roman fountains in the shape of dogs’ heads or human heads spewing public water through their mouths. And there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the way the alleys twist and turn which is why getting around is so difficult. And the entire island is all like this. I cannot describe here accurately how absolutely beautiful the city is. You kind of have to just take my word for it. And Venice is also famous for its carnivale, where people dress in those famous Venetian masks and costumes. Stores sell the masks and these old Venetian puppets.

Piazza di San Marco, all towers in this city are crooked

Some classical musical entertainment for fine diners

I spent my first evening wandering around the Piazza di San Marco, one of the largest plazas in the city. There were outdoor sitting areas for fancy Italian restaurants where live classical bands played old Italian music out in the courtyards of the restaurants. The sun was setting over the plaza and on the hour bells could be heard tolling the time in all directions around the plaza and across the island. I wandered through some of the alleyways behind the plaza for a couple of hours, and, still mapless, got hopelessly lost on the northern edge of the island, but luckily stumbled upon one of the city’s only supermarkets. I bought a couple of cheap beers, Italian Peroni, and headed back to the hostel to settle in for the night.

More gondolas for hire in the Grand Canal

Buildings in Venice are built right up along the canals

The hostel is set deep within one of these alleyways just behind a quiet plaza with its own fountain. This hostel is really nice, quiet and comfortable. I met three Canadian women here, all of them traveling individually, and a cool French guy who brought some really excellent whiskey from South America. He said he always brings one of these bottles with him whenever he travels. He gave us each a glass and it tasted of smooth vanilla, very nice stuff, and I told him it was a good way to make friends. He agreed. We stayed up late chatting before I turned in.

A look out from the northern coast of the island, mountains in the distance in mainland Italy

A closeup of some of the gondolas in the canals

I woke up relatively early, made some breakfast of taralli and water, and made some coffee. The hostel has this really cool coffee maker, one I have never seen before. It’s really just a metallic pot with two chambers, an upper and lower one, that screw into each other. In between them is a metallic filter and small container where the coffee is put, grounds that had been grounded into a powder. You fill the bottom chamber with water and then you put the whole thing on the stove to boil. The boiled water eventually turns to steam and the steam rises up and out of the bottom chamber, filtering through the coffee powder, and collects as really strong coffee in the upper chamber. Then you just pour a cup from the upper chamber. Cool, right? Anyway, I had planned to stay just one full day in the expensive city, two nights. I decided I would spend the day wandering very slowly around the island by foot using the Grand Canal as a guide. I started back at the Piazza di San Marco, and wandered around the plaza awhile, people-watching in the bright morning sun of daylight. I wandered out of the San Marco area and, winding through the busy alleyways and crossing up and over canals, made my way up to the Jewish Ghetto in the northwestern edge of the city. The Jewish Ghetto was a little quieter and less touristy than the rest of the city. There were kosher restaurants here and I came across one very long table, set outside in the sun along a canal, where Orthodox Jews shared a meal. It was pretty cool. Then I wandered back along the Grand Canal to the train station where I reserved my ticket to Rome. I dipped down back into the heart of the city near the middle of the “S” to a plaza where I got a cheap slice of pizza for lunch followed by some stacacchia gelato on a cone, very nice. I took a look into some of the buildings and churches in this area. Many of them allowed for free access. Some of the buildings would host concerts in the evening that you could reserve tickets for, classical concerts playing Venetian music. It would have been nice but the prices were too high. I found an interpretive art studio, walked around that awhile. And then I wandered down to the southern edge of the city along its coastline. Here too the water was full of boats and off in the distance lay another long island where more beautiful Venetian buildings and churches could be seen.

A narrow canal in the city

The city was dotted with stunning churches

I had been walking for hours at this point and I was getting a bit tired. I wet back to the hotel, sat down with the Italian owner in the kitchen for a beer, and rested awhile. I went back out that evening for a meal at a small pizzeria by the water near San Marco. This was the only place I could find that I knew wouldn’t charge me anything too absurd. I walked around the plaza again in the twilight of evening and then retired again to sleep.

Some laundry hanging to dry in the Jewish Ghetto

How old is this door do you suppose?

The next day, the day I am currently in, was eventful enough that it deserves its own post, I think. So I’ll end this one here in Venice. I did some planning for the future of my journey here in Venice as well. Lissy, the friend I stayed with in Berlin, has some time off next week and is meeting me in southern France to do some traveling. I am really excited that she could come down to meet me and it will be nice to have a traveling companion. So for Italy then, I’ll probably stay in Rome for most of next week and then either leave Rome for Nice, where I’m meeting up with Lissy, or try to spend a day or two in Florence before heading out to France. I’ll see how much I enjoy Rome, I guess.

A look out towards San Zaccaria from the southern portion of the island

Oh, by the way, Marco Polo was from Venice. Fun fact.

That’s it for now. See you in Rome!