The exhausted merchants of Venice.

Today we visited Venice, the city of canals. It was an early start to the day, and a ninety minute train journey both ways, but well worth the effort. The promised rain even held off for us. Venice is certainly a lovely place, but I think you can tell when you’re approaching saturation point as a tourist – things just don’t seem to have the same impact as they did a few weeks ago. Of course, it may also have something to do with the relentless crowds, the sheer rudeness of the locals, and their propensity to charge you to see and do absolutely everything.

A busy Venetian street, very wide by their standards.

 

Needless to say, there is no vehicular traffic on Venice, and everything moves via the canals.

Some gondolas tied up ready for the next cashed up tourist.

We had been warned on Trip Advisor (which has become a bit of a bible for us) to be aware of the gondola scams which operate at Venice. The going rate is 80 euros for around forty minutes (that’s around A$130), but many end up being less than thirty minutes long, due to ‘congestion’ on the canals. Alison and I ummed and arred, debated and discussed, and then concluded that we could not see the value in it – and so we didn’t. However, we did walk around most of the streets, which are really just full of shops selling tacky souvenirs and expensive Venetian glassware and jewellery. The other things the shops stock by the truckload are Venetian masks. I must admit, many of them are beautifully made, but they certainly don’t come cheap (around 75 euro for a full-sized one). 

This is the Piazza San Marco, which houses the Basilica di San Marco (that is not the Basilica in the photo).

More of the piazza.

Part of the Grande Canal, Venice.

 

Santa Maria della Salute

Tomorrow, we leave Verona for Florence, which is in Tuscany. Verona has been really lovely, and I think we managed to explore parts many tourists would never find. Last night we walked in the rain for over an hour towards the hills which backdrop our little village of Avesa. With the mist covering the terraced hillsides of olive groves, hundreds of years old, and vineyards and citrus orchards coming right down to the road, we could have walked forever (the sign said something about Austria, but I doubt the Number 23 bus goes that far). Living out of the main city has meant we feel as if we have experienced village life, to some extent; we’ve even started greeting the locals with, ‘Buongiorno’, on our walks through the back streets. To our surprise, many have started to converse back with us, in Italian of course. We haven’t had the heart to tell them we couldn’t understand a word they said, so we just keep nodding and saying, ‘Si, si, grazie’.

The streets of our village, Avesa.