Venice on foot

first day

We arrive in Venice by train, in the late morning, and the first thing we do is pick up the Venice Cards we booked online at the Vela ticket office in front of the Venezia S. Lucia station. 50 euros each for the Venice Card, which gives you access to public transport, the city's public toilets and the municipal museums. We go looking for the hotel, very close to the station, in a narrow, long alleyway: Hotel Abbazia, small but nice and clean, the staff are helpful, young and kind. Once we've got the room we go to drop off our bags and after a short rest we begin the Venetian tour de force. I had never seen Venice before then and I'm excited and thrilled about my birthday present...3 days in the city of love. The hotel is near the Ponte degli Scalzi, and from there our walk begins.

On foot we reach, passing through alleys and canals, the Ponte di Rialto, incredibly famous and very striking. Rialto is a very pretty and chic area of Venice, little restaurants, gondolas, the Grand Canal, lots of people, lots of shops up along the bridge, and amid a thousand people and my excitement I take photos galore. The view from the bridge is beautiful, the gondolas on the Grand Canal are the first big emotion to photograph. The romantic and inaccessible bars...coloured little lights are on even during the day, and the atmosphere is warm even though the sky is cloudy and the heat doesn't do anything for it.

But undeterred we carry on with our walk...before reaching St Mark's Square we stop in remote corners where time has stood still, where small canals full of water flow beneath and around us creating the city of water, the lagoon Venice that for its characteristics is unique in the world. Old buildings immersed in the canals, little bridges, courtyards, little churches, little gardens...at two o'clock it feels like lunchtime, which we have in a small restaurant with an outdoor summer seating area; the place is run by men, all the waiters are foreign. The menu of the day fills us up, and after an hour we're on our way again towards the most famous and talked-about square, St Mark's Square.

When we emerge into the square I'm ecstatic and stand there open-mouthed, it's grandiose and beautiful, the basilica, the clock tower, the Doge's Palace...all the way to the Grand Canal, from which you get a beautiful view of the islands facing the square. The public transport system is obviously made up of fast vaporetti that pass every 5 minutes and stop at the numerous landing stages along the major canals and take you everywhere...a bit like taking the metro but on water. Meanwhile a bit of sun has come out and between photos and sighs we visit the Doge's Palace, interesting and bewitching. The walk along the canal continues to the famous Bridge of Sighs, much photographed and admired. The visit to the Doge's Palace also takes us onto the Bridge of Sighs and to the palace prisons.

Having come out of the palace visit we join the queue for the visit to the clock tower, with a lift that takes you right to the top, from which there's a breathtaking view of Venice. We come out and continue our walk, through the crowd, in St Mark's Square and among the stalls of masks, little gondolas, t-shirts, various objects that one way or another bring Venice to mind. We admire the city and its views, the famous lion of Venice, the people in gondolas for a romantic ride. In the late afternoon we go back to the hotel for a shower, and it's time to go out for dinner. Walking among the bars we find a pizzeria and we let ourselves be talked into it by the waiter who pulls us inside. An ordinary dinner without excess, given the prices of beautiful Venice. When we come out it's almost eleven and the next day another day of walking through the alleys and squares awaits us.

We fall asleep in no time at all, exhausted from the day.

Murano and Burano

Wake-up at seven and a king's breakfast included in the very expensive price of the hotel. Stuffed to the brim from breakfast, we set off again into island Venice, immediately taking a vaporetto which, after doing the whole Grand Canal, which lets me take beautiful photos, arrives with a light drizzle at the island of Murano, famous for the production of handmade glass objects. The island is quite big and we immediately rush to see first-hand the creation of glass objects by Murano masters. We watch the creation of blown-glass balls and a glass horse made on the spot by hand, astonishing!!! At the exit there's a little shop of glass knick-knacks and we stop to make purchases since the prices are reasonable. The Murano glass museum keeps us busy for an hour, among rooms with beautiful creations, explanations about the making of glass, lots of people and lots of photos.

The island is very pretty and we take a long walk to visit it, and when we decide to head back towards the city centre we disembark in the stadium area where the match between Venezia and Cremonese is about to begin. We stop for a coffee and to take photos in a beautiful green park that opens onto the Grand Canal; the sun is out and the day is warm and lovely. Walking back towards the centre we come across the naval museum, already closed, and we decide to stop at a bar on the promenade to eat a sandwich at the outdoor tables.

We go back to St Mark's Square and decide to visit the Correr Museum, ancient art and books, paintings, statues...at the exit we're undecided whether to go to Burano...given the time and the hour...it's the last full day we have so we'd better make the most of it, and we take a boat that takes us to Burano after a very long one-hour ride, which we use to rest our feet and legs. On arrival at Burano we notice from afar one of the island's fascinating characteristics: the houses. The houses are small and brightly coloured, with different and vivid colours...impossible not to photograph them. The Burano lace museum is already closed at 18:45 but we have a look around and find a lady in a shop still open sewing lace. Along the tour of the little island, which is quiet and cosy, we get caught in a couple of drops of rain and slip away to the landing stage to return to the centre.

Burano isn't very well served by vaporetti and we have to wait a while...we arrive on the outskirts of Venice at 20:00. Exhausted, I try to pluck up courage to reach the hotel but we get lost in alleyways and remote corners of the city that seems like a damp, watery labyrinth. Darkness falls and we still haven't found the hotel...at a quarter past nine we decide to eat in a chic and pretty little restaurant near the Ponte degli Scalzi and the place is very nice. Il Povoledo offers us the menu of the day and little else, we pay a very steep bill and head to the hotel. I can't even manage the stairs from tiredness, I'm worn out, the day has shaken me and put me through the wringer far and wide along the canals. Monday will be our last day in Venice and I have to grit my teeth to the end. The alarm is set for 7:30.

The gondola

When the alarm goes off I feel like dying, my legs ache and I'm dazed from the accumulated tiredness; after a shower it's already better and we set off again into a Venice that seems sunny right from the morning. After breakfast we immediately board heading for the Peggy Guggenheim museum and the church of the Salute, where I light a little candle for us...I ask a gondolier who is polishing his boat for a ride...minimum 80 euros for half an hour...we board the vaporetto for the naval museum and it takes us longer than expected. The museum is interesting and at the exit I stop to admire the reflection of the sun on the Grand Canal...the people swarming along the promenade, loads of Japanese and Germans...so many people...From here St Mark's Basilica and the treasures of the basilica are pay-to-enter but we decide to visit them all the same.

At two o'clock we board a gondola found in a little canal far from St Mark's Square, and the friendly and thorough gondolier takes us through the most internal and remote canals of the city, explaining to us about Venice, the gondolas, the gondoliers, the taxes, the costs, the houses...the most interesting and romantic boat trip I've ever taken. When we pass under the little bridges people admire us, the gondola beneath us is beautiful and the gondolier is really on it...a thousand photos, and he drops us off after 35 minutes near the McDonald's, which we use to have lunch at 3 in the afternoon. Before going to pick up our luggage at the hotel we decide to do one more little trip...the island of S. Giorgio, complete with church and a sun that warms even the stones of the churchyard.

We get to the hotel just in time to collect and pay, the train back is at 17:49, and at the station as a last thing we see the presence of the famous Orient Express ready for departure........a beautiful blue and white 5-star train. We leave on time with a heap of memories, smiles and tiredness.......and all our 700 photographs!