All That and a Cup of Coff. . . . Er. . . Espresso!
It’s a short flight from Amsterdam to Venice, but a long day all in all. We arrive shortly after eleven p.m. and find a driver waiting to take us to our pre-arranged water taxi. (Should you find yourself going to Venice, definitely make arrangements for these two things as it is really overwhelming to be there and to try and be capable of functional thought would be ridiculous.) Even though I am exhausted I find my second wind as a wooden boat pulls up. Suddenly it hits me that not only am I in Italy, but I am in Venice. It’s surreal. The buildings along the Grand Canal (psst. . . . the GRAND CANAL!!) are lit up and waiting- we pass a museum with a giant sculpture of a skull with glowing eyes made entirely from aluminum watering cans . . . I kid you not . . odd. The boat chugs along and I am beaming at Ron, giddy and unable to contain myself, possibly a reaction to the long flight with no sleep (I do not sleep on planes- if it goes down I want to be coherent for my last minutes alive, plus they’re noisy), but I think the romance and excitement of it all has hit me. We pull up to our dock by our condo and are met by Daniela and Gabriele, the young couple who manage the condo rentals for Truly Venice, a condo rental company. They are incredibly nice and walk us through the apartment, give us tips on getting around, what to see and not miss and even a couple of restaurant recommendations. I am struck by how self-assured and confident they are and am sure that when I was their age, I was not nearly so. It’s hard to describe- maybe very “European” would be accurate. . . At any rate, we have a bit of a look around, we come off of our high and decide to wait a day and get some sleep.
We’re not officially on the Grand Canal, but we do have a canal outside of our window and so we wake, not to the customary alarm clock, but to the songs of gondoliers as they punt by on their way to start their day. Across the pillow we smile at each other and get up to start our day. The days that follow fall into a sort of routine- the day begins with a morning jog (early which is great- you get a feel for where you want to go for the day without the crowds being out and about yet), though while jogging up and over the foot bridges of Venice sounds cool, for me (a reluctant jogger at best), it quickly loses its appeal and I am reduced to watching Ron get smaller as I stop to have a look at my surroundings. The cart vendors are setting up their wares along the canal outside of San Marco’s Square to my right and the Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore and the Venice Lagoon are to my left with small boats heading out on the gentle waves. The sun is bright and it is going to be a beautiful day.
We plan our days loosely around the different districts (Castello, San Marco, San Polo, Cannaregio, Dorsoduro and Santa Croce), with enough freedom to allow ourselves to be sidetracked should we wish to be. We walk almost everywhere, and only take the Vaporetto (the city bus so to speak) when we absoloutely have to, or when we are simply eshausted from walking. There are only three bridges in Venice which cross the Grand Canal with the rest being very small footbridges- crossing the Grand Canal are The Rialto (think Madonna’s Like a Virgin bridge), the Accademia (made out of wood and originally intended to be temporary but the citizens had grown fond of it and so it was kept), and the Scalzi (Austrian and reminiscent of the Rialto but not quite as ornate). At the bottom of the Rialto are markets- fruit, vegetables etc. and these are bustling. Don’t let that fool you however into thinking that the vendors are unaware of what is going on in their sales area. I literally had my hand slapped by one when I picked up a piece of fruit to buy. NB- only the vendors can touch the produce until after you have made your purchase, before that your job is simply to point to what you want. Here I was in Italy, I had just walked over the Rialto bridge and had my hand slapped by someone I didn’t know . . . it was pure magic!!
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