Venice; The Floating City

Hello and welcome to the next instalment of ChickenStew’s Travel Recipes from Around the World. As some of you may know we’ve spent the past few days exploring Italy’s floating (or sinking) city; Venice. Regardless of the floating/sinking argument, Venice is and will always be beautiful as you imagine it to be. Stepping out of the train station we were greeted with a bustling waterfront. There were ferries, gondolas, water taxis, delivery barges and even canoes vying for a spot on the Grand Canal. It was very weird not to see streams of scooters, cars and bicycles roaring through as we had seen throughout so many of our Italian stops. Map in hand, we boarded a ferry bound for the famous Rialto Bridge and our hotel. Quickly glancing at the map in between my tourist gawks of the beautiful Grand Canal I decided that we had to climb over the Rialto Bridge to reach out hotel. Turns out I was wrong and after wandering aimlessly for a few minutes, we worked out that I had been reading the map back to front - durr. I would make a rubbish Scout. So we (well Stu) heaved our heavy suitcases back over the Rialto Bridge and in the right direction of our hotel. Turning down a tiny street we started hearing cheers and groans coming from a tiny pub. Turns out we have just stumbled right into the middle of the Italia-New Zealand game. Deciding then and there that we had to return to this pub to catch the end of the game (it’s always fun watching the Italian supporters) we hurriedly checked into the hotel and were back at the pub within minutes of the second half. Stu decided that this would be the one and only time he would support New Zealand in a sporting match (Stu: unless they ever play England!). Once the game was over we headed towards St Marks Square (San Marco) along the tiny back streets and over the canals. Arriving at the square we found it to be completely flooded – now where do we go? Oh well only one thing to do – take off our shoes, roll up our jeans and get wet. We splashed out way though the square towards the Doges Palace and towards higher ground. What fun – was just like being a child again! Anyway when we reaching the waterfront and strolling down towards the parks, we were amazed to see how many gondolas and cruise ships were in the lagoon. They were everywhere. We found a small restaurant for dinner and were surprised to be serenaded by not only the restaurant owner but one of the waitresses as well. How very Venice.

Day 2 we awoke to grey skies and occasional showers (not again!) so we decided that the day would be best spent exploring the streets and checking out the local museums. All in all we had another Lord of the Rings day (see Stu’s blog “How far did you walk today from 0 to Lord of the Rings”). We headed over the Academia Bridge towards the Peggy Guggenheim Museum (highly recommended by Jen as a must do in Venice). The museum was amazing and definitely worth the visit. I got an audio guide (a must do) which explained how the museum used to be Peggy’s home and how she came about to collect so many famous pieces. It also went on to describe many of the pieces within the museum – fascinating stories. One funny story which I have to share was that of the statue sitting proudly on Grand Canal terrace. The statue is of a naked figure sitting upright (in more ways than one) on top of a horse, worshipping the skies. According the audio guide, the sculptor made the figures “member” removable for when discretion was required. Peggy soon had the member welded on when people started stealing it. As such the “member” now stands proud, welded in place for all to see. From the Guggenheim museum we headed around the point (and the statue of the boy with his frog) towards to cruise terminal to check out the boats in port. From here we again got lost in the tiny streets until we found our way back to St Marks Square (flooded again) and the looming Queen Victoria parked alongside the boardwalk. Unfortunately we didn’t get to splash our way through the square this time as the fun police (Stu) didn’t want to get his feet wet. Finding another way around the flooded square we headed for a closer look of the Queen Victoria before grabbing dinner and heading back to the hotel and calling it a night.

Day 3 we awoke to bright blue sunny skies – hurrah! Deciding that today would be best spent cruising the waterways and lagoons of Venice, we purchased a 12 hour ferry pass and boarded Ferry (Line 1) for a cruise down the Grand Canal towards the island of Lido (and the beach). Arriving at Lido we strolled down the main street towards the beach. Lido is very much like Noosa in many ways, the pavements are wide and lined with trees, alfresco cafes and gelatarias. The way of life seems a lot slower here – it’s nice. Reaching the beach we kicked off our havianas and headed past the little beach huts and umbrellas to dip our toes in the ocean. From Lido we boarded another ferry back to the main island so that we could take another to the island of Murano – famous the world over for its glass. Whilst we managed to score amazing seats at the front of the boat, poor Stu was unlucky enough to sit down wind from an Eastern European gentleman who had the worst case of BO we had ever encountered. Poor Stu didn’t get to enjoy the scenery at all, having to look back at Lido Island the entire trip to the main island. Luckily we were spared the company of our new friends on the second ferry and were able to kick back and enjoy the passing scenery as we circumnavigated the main island enroute to Murano. Stu would like me to add here that we passed the cemetery island where rumour has it the Venetians are just dying to get to. Ha ha ha... hmmm. While we were in Murano we strolled the main street checking out all of the amazing glass wares and were even lucky enough to watch a glass blowing demonstration – very cool. From Murano we headed back to St Marks Square to enjoy the live music streaming from the restaurants within the square. I even managed to con a local pigeon to fly onto my arm for a photo op. Stu thinks that this pigeon will come back to get me when I least expect it. I hope not, then again I heard that being pooed on is considered a sign of good luck? Still gross.

Day 4, another bright sunny day in the floating city. Having seen most of Venice over the past two day, we decided to once again get lost in the small maze of streets that is the city and see what we could find. Heading over the Rialto Bridge we wandered through the local markets; stand after stand of colourful, fresh fruit and veg. There was also a fish market where we saw two huge whole tunas as well as numerous different kinds of shellfish. Stu recognised a langoustine (shrimp like crustacean with claws) whose shell he had battled during one dinner in Prague. From here we kept walking (more Lord of the Rings) until it was time to settle down to watch England vs. Slovenia with a huge cocktail at Hard Rock Cafe. One yummy pina colada down, we soon realised that they were only showing the USA vs. Algeria and hurried to our local to watch the game. While at the pub we met a lovely Australian couple from Melbourne who had been in Italy for the past 7 weeks. Getting onto the topic of Italian shoes and then somehow on to Oliver Footwear, we soon discovered that this couple owned Aquila and knew Stu’s old boss. Small world huh? They also introduced us to an Australian drink called “Black and Tan” (must be a Melbournian thing because we had never heard of it) – ½ lager, ½ Guinness. Sounds disgusting but it was actually quite nice. Anyway a few hours later, England and the US had both gotten through to the next stage and after a quick dinner, we were back in the pub to watch Australia thrash Serbia. Turned out to be quite the football afternoon.

Well that was how we spent our time in Venice. As I write this blog we are now sitting on a Eurostar City train bound for Milan where we have to catch our next train to Lake Como and the beautiful lakeside town of Bellagio. Only two more days in Italy before we hit France. Ok time for me to sign off and enjoy the passing scenery. Ciao for now.

To view photos of Venice CLICK HERE or visit http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=445619&id=664955104&l=7fb8f00d9a