Travel Diary 20
Woke up early and got on our way as we had our first tour at
9.00am and needed to be a bit early. Also had no idea how long it would take to
get there by local bus – always a bit of a predicament!!
Venice was about 10kms from the campsite and the bus was on
our road about 100 meters away. Having bought tickets from the campsite
reception the previous night and looked at maps etc we felt set. The bus was
full, standing room only and we got a good view over people’s heads. After
20mis of winding around all sorts of clover leafs, roundabouts and various
streets we ended up on the only road bridge across the bay to the island of
Venice. The tide was out and muddy banks were everywhere. Vaporettas, the name
for the local taxi boats that look like the old 1950’s “cigarette boats”,
followed one another through deeper channels towards the first drop off on the
island.
We noticed a rail only bridge in the distance and that made
up the access methods to Venice itself.
Before arriving we past huge car parks on the edge of the
island. Obviously trying to drive one in Venice is impossible and anyone who
has one has to park it here regardless of where you live and then use boats to
get home or to work or to wherever.
Venice is made up of 121 islands of which two are the main ones.
They have been, over the years built on and joined together by bridges and
canals. On average most canals are about 3 meters deep, but this varies and
speed on the canals is an absolute No! No! Any wake at all causes water to
spill into places and basements it is not wanted. So what may normally be a 5
min trip on a boat becomes 10-15.
We got off the bus and looked around. Just a huge mob of
people heading in different directions. We knew we wanted to get to St Mark’s
Square, but how to do that. So the best thing is, as St Mark’s is on the Main
Canal, is to follow the people walking towards the canal where we hoped they
knew they could catch a waterbus. Turned out we were right.
We needed to travel about 20 mins down the canal about 2kms
and when asked to pay 30 Euros each for the day, we were a bit stunned. Talk
about bump up the prices when there are no options! Normally a 24-hour ticket
on public transport in Italy is around the 7 Euro mark. So this was way over
the odds! However, as I said “No option” and we paid up while feeling like
trapped rats!
Over the years, the various city council members have
ordered about 1/3rd of all the canals to be either filled in or
closed over. I couldn’t find out why apart from one chap who said it was
easier, quicker and cheaper to wheel barrow goods and materials around than
sail them in boats. Which makes sense I guess!
Even though so many have been filled in, a new person
visiting would never know that as there are so many.
The Grand Canal (main canal), is about 60 meters wide and
flowing with dirty water. In fact, all the water is dirty mainly due to Venice
being built on mud banks and swamp land. Great places to hide from the enemy
hundreds of years ago. In fact, that is precisely why Venice came into being.
People hid out there when the enemies came to attack them. Over the years, they
got organised and a city commenced. This was all pre Roman times. By the time
the Romans took over, there was a decent city with lots of buildings, and some serious
trading going on with places like Turkey, Greece, other regions in Italy and
places as far away as Spain and France. The Venetians never went to war and
became exceptional traders and wheeler dealers and nothing seems to have
changed much! If there is a quid to be made, they are in it!
Historically, they had their own ruling families and some
fairly serious ones as well. They made their own laws, punishments and ignored
what the Romans and everyone else seemed to think was best for them. The only
time they got a bit worried was when the Austrians came to fight them. But they
formed an alliance with Milano and together their armies sorted out the
Austrians! Well it was mostly Milano’s armies, but the Venetians didn’t mind so
much. They now had a new trading partner in Milano! Great outcome for them.
Through his alliance they did become the gateway for all
things from the Middle East. Funnily enough, there is precious little Moorish
influence around even thought there was lots of contact with them.
We eventually arrived, after seeing a host of houses and
buildings with green slime all around their basements and docks due to the low
tide. Some interesting buildings, obviously very old and some interesting
goings on as well.
One point I noticed was that were a lot of boats with small
cranes on board. At first I thought they were delivery boats, but No, they were
rubbish collectors. Domestic and commercial rubbish is stored in large bins beside
the canal and these boats come by every so often and empty the bins into their
boat and then head off somewhere with it. It’s the same thing that happens
everywhere in Italy. They do not have a Rubbish collection as we do in
Australia. No one has bins at home. There are bins on the corners of streets
and strategically placed every so often on long roads. Usually 3 or 4 as all
rubbish is sorted into recyclable and non-recyclable piles. You see people on
the way to work pull up beside a rubbish bin, hop out, chuck their rubbish in
these bins and then drive off again! Amazing! This system is used on Venice
with the only difference being boats instead of trucks are used to empty the
large bins. It works for them!
We meet our group and tour guide at the Royal Gardens about 100
meters from the entrance to St Mark’s square. We had a small group of about 8
people and an Italian tour guide who ended every English word by pronouncing
the last letter as a hard consonant whether it was silent or not and whether it
is supposed to blended into previous letters to not. Then adding an “a” or “e”
afterwards. This is normal in Italian and if an Italian teaches English well …
it is a hard habit to get out of.
So we went to St Marksa to seea the Basilica whicha isa
beautiful b-ilding-g. And all in a strange accent. Never mind, after a while
she became kind of understandable and much better than her counterparts in
Rome! But since then it has become a
private joke to speak like that ourselves. Not in earshot of course. Don’t want
to offend anyone! But saying something like “Thisa bigga pillar was aboughtta
from Egypta inna early Romana daysa” usually getsa a bigga smila OK?
Seriously there is a huge market for a proper learning to
speak English course for tour guides here. If only they recognised it!
The first Tour was of the Doge’s palace. Doge’s by the way
is pronounced like Dodgers as in The Dodgers of American Baseball fame. The
Doge was a title given to the Leader of the Venetians. He was prince like in
every way. He was appointed by the local political elite and once selected,
could not refuse the position. That’s it! You are now the Doge until you die of
old age or until someone kills you! Mmmmm!
The last few Doges had spent a fortune on a Palace and magnificent
furnishings and sculptures and paintings on every wall. Most of these are on
display and we wandered through room after room looking and “listning-ga”. It was all very interesting.
One story stood out for me. They originally had a jail in
the basement and it included about four or five floors above the basement so it
formed a kind of tower on the corner of the Doge’s Palace. If you were a prisoner,
the nature of your crime determined on which level up you were incarcerated. If
you ended up in the basement, that was curtains for you as you invariably died
quite quickly of all sorts of diseases due to the place being so cold and damp
all the time and the food was irregular and not the best either.
Apparently the prisoners made a bit of a racket from time to
time. Lots of moaning about being unfairly treated and being innocent. So, in
order not to hear this moaning anymore, one Doge had another prison built
across a small canal right next door to the Palace and joined the two together
with a hollow archway. Not a bridge. The reason for joining the two was that
the Court rooms were in the palace and once found guilty, you were walked
through a couple of passages through the archway and straight into prison
without ever going outside.
In the 1800’s when Lord Byron (I think it was), visited
Venice, he took one look at the setup and poetically called this archway the
“Bridge of Sighs” due to people sighing when they ended up in prison. And the
name stuck. Not a bridge at all!
Regardless, we got to climb our way through this archway
into the prison. Lots of graffiti on the walls and names and dates etc. Some in
English, some in Latin and some in other languages. Obviously, didn’t matter
where you came from, no favours given to anyone.
After an hour and a half of walking through about 50 rooms
each filled with paintings and various artworks we went outside to St Mark’s Square.
Here we stood in the sun for about 30 mins listening to our guide point out how
big the square is – and it is very big, probably one of the biggest we have
seen. A brief description of the bell tower; she told us we shouldn’t walk
between the pillars at the entrance as it will cause bad luck; pointed out St
Mark’s Basilica; about how the water flooded the square at high tide these days
as the whole lot is sinking and that was about it.
We had 20 mins to spare before our tour of St Mark’s
Basilica and a walk through Venice started from the same spot as the last tour.
So, we had a bit of a sit down and a coffee before returning to the Royal
Gardens.
When we got there, we found the same people who had been on
or first tour. So it would appear that Viator got everyone thinking along the
same lines! This time we had a lady guide whose English was much better and
after much counting and sorting and checking of names which took about 20 mins
for 9 people, we headed off. Back to St Mark’s Square and straight between the
pillars which bought us all some bad luck (nothing said about that this time!),
and stopped in the sun near the same spot we had stood for the first guide.
Here we learnt about the Square and had pointed out the Doge’s
palace and the same stories we had just been told were retold for about 25
mins. Then around to see the clock tower with the only medieval working
mechanical clock in all of Italy chime midday. We had to listen to the bells
ring from three different towers each one after the other as apparently the
time changes by a minute or so from place to place; had explained about the water
starting to appear in the Square as it was nearing high tide and pretty much a
repeat of the first tour.
By now an hour of this visit to St Mark’s Basilica was over
and apart from the clock tower which is available for everyone to see free of
charge, we had neither seen nor heard anything new. But! There was the Basilica
to come. We wandered over and stood around for 20 mins while the locals placed
duckboards in the entranceway so we didn’t have to walk in the water, then
headed inside.
The inside is quite something, but there was a mass going on
and we had a quick 15 min walk around, not allowed to say anything or take
photos etc. Then as there was only 20 mins left of the tour we were led through
a series of alleyways, over a few bridges, through a couple of smaller squares
and had the odd story told to us. At the end of 20 mins we were near the Rialto
Bridge which is under repair and is smothered with tourists and small tents
selling tourists more junk from China.
We were told please hand back your hearing aids which had
allowed us to hear the guide and thank you very much. If you want to go back to
St Mark’s square, go this way and follow the signs. That was it!
Sometimes one feels as though you’ve been had and this tour
certainly did that!
It was now around 12.30pm and we were a bit peckish. So as we
didn’t want to join all the other tourists eating expensive food from shops in
the immediate area, we crossed the Rialto Bridge and wandered into the non-touristy
area. We found a delightful bar come restaurant which at some previous time had
been very popular with all sorts of celebrities and had its walls covered with
photos of these people as well as various newspaper clippings and magazine
covers where the restaurant had featured.
I must say it lived up to its reputation and apart from the
other owner and his friend, we were the only ones there and enjoyed a low cost
meal of local cuisine – Calamari salad and a spaghetti dish with a couple of
red wines.
We finished off the last of the red sitting in the sun
outside in a back alley beside an open window to what appeared to be someone’s
home. Inside, about 3 meters from us, was an elderly couple doing things
elderly people do in their homes in Venice and we all settled down after a
bright “Bonjourno” to each other.
The last of the red disappeared and we paid up something
like 20 euros for the meal. That’s about $A30 for bread and a couple of pieces
of Tapas, two courses and a bottle of red. Much better than 8 euros each for a bread
roll with some lettuce, cheese and tomato in it available in the tourist area!
Sometimes it pays to go off course!
Then we decided to walk back to St Mark’s Square to meet the
last Tour which was a boat ride in a Vaporetti on the Grand Canal. This turned
to have some interesting bits as we sailed through not only the Grand Canal,
but also through some others and around the outside of parts of the city.
Various things were pointed out such as there’s so and so’s Church and here is
a book store which can only be accessed by boat. Or if you look, you can how
the basement of this or that building gets flooded. Towards the end it all became
a bit Ho Hum and I fell asleep in the heat of the sun in the back of the boat
only waking up when we returned to the dock!
Our three tours for the day over, we caught another Waterbus
and sailed up the Grand Canal for the third time that day; onto the bus and got
off at what we thought was the correct bus stop but turned out one too early
and had a tired longer than expected trudge back to camp.
The next day was a washing and resting my legs day until
four o’clock when we caught the bus back into Venice to meet Marco.
Marco is someone I had found out about when researching this
trip. He is a press photographer has worked for most newspapers in England and
these days does photography tours of Venice in out of the way places and
provides photography lessons and tips while doing it. Kerrie and I had
discussed whether she’d be interested or would prefer to do something else. She
thought she’d come.
That lasted until we had walked down the first street and
what me and Marko chatting away about photography, Kerrie was left out and
decided that doing something else for a change, like shopping would be a much
better idea. We arranged where to meet and at what time and parted ways.
Marco and I spent two magic hours visiting places well out
of the tourist areas and I learnt some valuable photo taking techniques and
tips. Most enjoyable and definitely something I can recommend to anyone interested
in photography. He does a range of tours of varying length and prices and if
anyone is visiting Venice and would like his contact details, give me a yell.
