Venice

Venice is a very special city. I had never realised that Venice really is just a few city blocks built right in the water on a handful of mostly submerged islands. Some of the footpaths along the grand canal seem to be permanently submerged, the rendering on many older buildings is badly damaged up to the first floor, and a few tall buildings canting towards each other above narrow alley ways or minor canals are all reminders of the fragility of this city. We spent the day getting lost in the labyrinth of passages and bridges, regaining our bearings by jumping on the nearest vaporetto (commuter ferry), and peering through shop windows. Venice is probably a wonderful place to shop if you have a princely budget and like extravagant clothing, ornaments and jewellery, in which case you would probably hire a gondola for a day (about 70 euro per hour!) and a personal guide to show you around. We settled for window shopping and jostling our way aboard the crowded vaporettos to extract exceptional value from our 13 euro 12 hour tickets!

“I don’t queue”

Rhea and I have adopted this motto, as neither of us have the patience to stand in line with a hundred other tourists just to go into a crowded museum, church, or whatever they’re waiting for. Unless it’s something we both definitely want to see, we admire the outside of the building, and move on to something that is not on the itinerary of the tour groups.

And so our tour of Venice was almost certainly unorthodox. We wandered from island to island through the places where real Venetians live, around their houses and schools, the produce market, watched the daily commercial routines of goods deliveries and postal service, and poked our heads into a couple of churches and cathedrals. Most German cathedrals are free to enter, but you can pay for guided tours, brochures, etc. Not so in Venice – it’s another 2.50 to enter each church just to marvel at the artwork. From the doorway, they really didn’t appear any more special than the cathedrals I’ve visited elsewhere in Europe, and last time I checked, the pope was doing pretty well financially, so we saved our money to visit one particular cathedral which Rhea wanted to see. To our surprise, Rhea’s cathedral was probably the only one in Venice with free admission!