Our accommodation is located in the west side of Venice, so what better way to travel to Piazza San Marco than by public transport, a vaporetto (water bus) down the Grand Canal.
What we didn’t quite take into account was the heat and humidity, and a gazillion hot, sweaty and grumpy tourists. I’ve never seeeeen so many tourists in one spot in my life before.
But try taking a shot without people!
Can be done, with a little inventiveness.
And the cure for hot, weary tourists with sore feet?
Gelato!
a great view of the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute (1681) while waiting for the vaporetto ‘home’
and farewell Piazza San Marco . . . .
The traditional way of crossing the Canal from one bank to the other, a two minute ride aboard a traghetto, for 50cents.
A couple of hundred years ago Venice boasted 10,000 gondolas, providing the main form of transportation. Today, there are no more than 500 plying their trade. Traditions retained, licensed gondoliers have a strict uniform code – black pants and shoes, striped shirt and optional straw hat. They are not required to sing!
A leisurely ride in a gondola is fine for vacationing tourists, but if you want to get somewhere in a hurry, water taxi is just the ticket.
Our taxi driver Davide, who collected us from the airport a few days ago. Nice to see a local friendly face. Ciao Davide!
Palaces (now hotels)
The Rialto Bridge – surely the bridge captured most often by artists down the ages . . . .
. . . merchant houses . . . .
calm waters . . . . .
. . . . congested waters! The Grand Canal.
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