Ahhh….Venice!

It was very hard to say goodbye to Florence but we had to catch the train to Venice so off we went!

When we booked our Airbnb, we looked at price, view and accommodations. Little did we know, we had booked not on one of the main islands of Venice with all the sites but on an adjacent island of Venice called Giudecca (see map)

Venice is a group of 118 small islands separated by 150 canals and open water! There are over 400 bridges linking portions of the various islands. (Again, most not ADA compliant😓)

So once we got off the train, we needed to catch a ferry to Giudecca. At first, we were disappointed not being on the main island where all the sites and shops were. But once we arrived on this quaint, quiet section of Venice, we were pleased with our choice.

We thought we would explore Giudecca a bit before dinner.

Time for dinner and some wine!

Day 2 on Venice: A little history on Venice before all the photos. Venice started to be inhabited by people living off the edges of the Venetian Lagoon in fifth century AD, trying to find safety from the Barbarians who were attacking Italy. This proved to be a wise move as it ended up being the only city in Italy that was not invaded. It was difficult to reach and easy to defend. But the islands were marshy and unstable so they had to figure out a way to build there. To anchor buildings, long wooden oak piles were driven into the clay beneath the water and since wood will only rot in the presence of oxygen and the silt and soil in the lagoons water were absorbed into the wood this sped the rate of petrifying the wood into stone- like pillars. Engineering ingenuity!

Over the centuries, though, with rising sea levels, Venice is sinking and flooding occurs often😓

So now let’s begin our tour of Venice! There are water taxis that make stops to various parts of each island. At the dock, you’ll see the scheduled times of these water taxis and you better be there on time because they wait for no one! The captain would watch people running to try to get to the dock, and he would just takeoff if they didn’t make it on time 🫣

Once we arrived, we realized how fortunate we were to be staying on Giudecca. The main islands tourism average is 52,000 people per day and up to 110,000 depending on the time of year! It was a bit crowded, but I didn’t have the feeling of overcrowding or being uncomfortable. Maybe it’s because we tend to stay out of the shops, and just take in the walking and the beauty of the architecture. There are a lot of street vendors, so you don’t necessarily have to go into a shop, unless you are looking for something specific.

We loved watching the gondoliers navigating the narrow canals and absorbing the ‘feel’ of the historic architecture, the sea air and hearing all the different languages of the tourists.

As we were about to get on our water taxi back to Giudecca, we witnessed this:

****next blog, Day 3 in Venice