![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fluffymarkThe pretty city. The Labyrinth. The city where the roads are canals. Enchanting and magical, where everything seems Romance, and the whole place is unreal. For those of you who think Cambridge is not of this planet, think again.....Venice is like Cambridge but even less real. Narrow winding alleyways, often leading nowhere, easy to get lost in, but very very pretty and eternally captivating. The canals, some narrow and just as winding, and some, like the Grand Canal, huge, impressive, with many pretty boats travelling up and down it, carrying passengers aplenty. Daily Floods. Pretty churches. And a million souvenir shops trying to sell Carnivale masks and Murano glass. If I ever get married - this would be my dream honeymoon destination.
Arriving in Venice by train is an experience in itself. After travelling through many hundreds of miles of impressive Italian countryside, including the Appenine mountains, the train from Rome arrived at the East coast of Italy. The train lines run right up to the venetian lagoon, and then keep on going right out into the middle of the Lagoon to where Venice is, a few kilometres offshore. It's slightly weird travelling on a train across the sea like that. Arriving in Venice, and it's a completely different world. Of course, no roads mean no cars. It's peaceful and the air is pleasant. While Venice is famed for its gondolas, the price was way beyond out means. So we resorted to the slightly cheaper option, the Vaporetti boat buses (these still cost a fair bit - nothing is cheap in Venice) and did our travelling around on those. And we had to travel by boat, as the hostel we stayed at was on the island of Giodecca, separate from the main part of Venice. Not only is the idea of staying on an island very fetching, the views from there were spectacular - straight across the water was St. Marks Square itself, making it quite possibly one of the best views of the whole of Venice.
Although there is much to do in Venice (museums, concerts, galleries and the like) they were not cheap, and we found plenty to do and see just wandering the streets. And wander we did. Venice is a total labyrinth. Even knowing exactly where we were going, and with the help of a map, we got very lost every single timewe tried to find anywhere. No pathways are straight, they all bend around, wiggle in and out and have so many side roads and junctions, often leading nowhere, and with canals often blocking the way, and all looking similar, that getting lost is commonplace. Not that we minded in a place like Venice - we ended up seeing very pretty bits of the city we would never have found otherwise (and will probably never be able to find again) and it only added to the thrill and the enchantment of the place. One night we got so lost I ended up using the position of Jupiter to determine which direction we were really heading. The next night, it was very foggy, visibility was about 10 metres, and we got even more lost! Eeeeep.
Fog was not all we had to deal with. Venice is slowly sinking into the lagoon, and now floods regularly in winter. The Aquae Alta flood occurred on our first morning there, and we got to St. Marks Square to find it under about half a metre of water. Eeeples!
The Island of Murano is famous for its glass. We travelled there via Vaporetti, and went souvenir shopping there (and cake shopping!). Many many glass fishies to be found all over that island (as well as Venice itself) and I got a bit overexcited every time I saw yet another window display full of glass fishies (at absurdly high prices - this glass is not cheap).
The only gripe I had was about the cold - while Rome was warm in January, Venice certainly isn't, and when I next go back there (and I'm certainly intending to) I'll make sure I go at a slightly less cold time of year.
St. Marks Square itself is pretty, with the covered walkways around the edges, and the magical Basilica at the end. The square has a few very old and famous, and very very very pretty cafes dotted around it (Byron used to have breakfast regularly in one of them), and a couple of times we hopped into one for a brief espresso (served at the bar for 0.90 Euros; we were not going to be paying the 4.10 Euros for the exact same Espresso served at the table). I visited a few of the pretty churches, to see the treasures hidden within. Another awesome sight is the Rialto bridge over the Grand Canal, elegantly spanning the waters below with its arches, and looking very pretty in all the fairy lights. Oh yes....the lights. Maybe they are there all the time, or maybe we were lucky and they only appear near Christmas, but all the major throughways were decorated in pretty fairly lights in very magical patterns and designs and it added to the effect of the whole place being some weird fairyland, all covered in prettiness.
Again, theres no words I can use to do justice to the wonder that is Venice.
pretty pretty pretty
Arriving in Venice by train is an experience in itself. After travelling through many hundreds of miles of impressive Italian countryside, including the Appenine mountains, the train from Rome arrived at the East coast of Italy. The train lines run right up to the venetian lagoon, and then keep on going right out into the middle of the Lagoon to where Venice is, a few kilometres offshore. It's slightly weird travelling on a train across the sea like that. Arriving in Venice, and it's a completely different world. Of course, no roads mean no cars. It's peaceful and the air is pleasant. While Venice is famed for its gondolas, the price was way beyond out means. So we resorted to the slightly cheaper option, the Vaporetti boat buses (these still cost a fair bit - nothing is cheap in Venice) and did our travelling around on those. And we had to travel by boat, as the hostel we stayed at was on the island of Giodecca, separate from the main part of Venice. Not only is the idea of staying on an island very fetching, the views from there were spectacular - straight across the water was St. Marks Square itself, making it quite possibly one of the best views of the whole of Venice.
Although there is much to do in Venice (museums, concerts, galleries and the like) they were not cheap, and we found plenty to do and see just wandering the streets. And wander we did. Venice is a total labyrinth. Even knowing exactly where we were going, and with the help of a map, we got very lost every single timewe tried to find anywhere. No pathways are straight, they all bend around, wiggle in and out and have so many side roads and junctions, often leading nowhere, and with canals often blocking the way, and all looking similar, that getting lost is commonplace. Not that we minded in a place like Venice - we ended up seeing very pretty bits of the city we would never have found otherwise (and will probably never be able to find again) and it only added to the thrill and the enchantment of the place. One night we got so lost I ended up using the position of Jupiter to determine which direction we were really heading. The next night, it was very foggy, visibility was about 10 metres, and we got even more lost! Eeeeep.
Fog was not all we had to deal with. Venice is slowly sinking into the lagoon, and now floods regularly in winter. The Aquae Alta flood occurred on our first morning there, and we got to St. Marks Square to find it under about half a metre of water. Eeeples!
The Island of Murano is famous for its glass. We travelled there via Vaporetti, and went souvenir shopping there (and cake shopping!). Many many glass fishies to be found all over that island (as well as Venice itself) and I got a bit overexcited every time I saw yet another window display full of glass fishies (at absurdly high prices - this glass is not cheap).
The only gripe I had was about the cold - while Rome was warm in January, Venice certainly isn't, and when I next go back there (and I'm certainly intending to) I'll make sure I go at a slightly less cold time of year.
St. Marks Square itself is pretty, with the covered walkways around the edges, and the magical Basilica at the end. The square has a few very old and famous, and very very very pretty cafes dotted around it (Byron used to have breakfast regularly in one of them), and a couple of times we hopped into one for a brief espresso (served at the bar for 0.90 Euros; we were not going to be paying the 4.10 Euros for the exact same Espresso served at the table). I visited a few of the pretty churches, to see the treasures hidden within. Another awesome sight is the Rialto bridge over the Grand Canal, elegantly spanning the waters below with its arches, and looking very pretty in all the fairy lights. Oh yes....the lights. Maybe they are there all the time, or maybe we were lucky and they only appear near Christmas, but all the major throughways were decorated in pretty fairly lights in very magical patterns and designs and it added to the effect of the whole place being some weird fairyland, all covered in prettiness.
Again, theres no words I can use to do justice to the wonder that is Venice.
pretty pretty pretty
no subject
Date: 2003-01-13 03:23 pm (UTC)