Italy - A Day in Venice

The next morning came with the furious, incessant barking of the two farmhouse dogs, so I rolled out of bed and pulled back the curtain hoping to view the furry Italian bear that these watchful pooches had surely cornered.  I was disappointed to see that the dogs were standing at the edge of the vineyard barking at the vines through the heavy fog. I decided to go ahead and make coffee since I was already up.  Our destination on this day was Venice, and I was excited about finally seeing the city that makes even the most stoic travel gurus get all gushy and sentimental when they describe its time-worn splendor.  We weren’t in a hurry, which is a state we’ve come to immensely enjoy on this journey. After a late breakfast, Deena and I reviewed the instructions for reaching Venice by public transportation one more time.  Rain was predicted for late afternoon, so we loaded the backpacks with our rain coats and walked out to the bike barn on a cool sunny Italian morning.  We passed the grape vines, the leaves still dripping with moisture from the fog, and our shoes got soggy with dew on the thick grass.  Some other guests had already taken two of the bikes we had used the day before, so we had to test drive several more until we found suitable replacements.  We biked a few kilometers back to the village crossroads, locked our bikes to the rack on the corner, and once again surrendered our fates to the Italian public transportation system.

After fifteen minutes or so, our 5E bus rolled around the corner, and we got on wondering why it was flashing Mestre Centrale instead of Venezia, but we trusted our host’s instructions and settled in for the thirty-minute, direct ride into Venice.  Once we arrived at the Mestre Centrale stop, all the other passengers disembarked, and the driver gave us the finger slash across the throat to signify either the ride was over or that we were soon to be Mafia victims.  Dejectedly we got off the bus and wandered around until we found what appeared to be a transfer stop for the 5E bus, and we dutifully began waiting for a bus that never appeared.  Deena saved the day by figuring out the patterns of the nearby trams, and before long, we were speeding along the tracks on our way across the causeway heading to Venice, not knowing if the bus tickets in our pockets allowed legal tram travel.  From a distance, the buildings and towers of Venice lining the far edge of the lagoon looked peach and gold topped with burnt-orange roof lines in the midday sun .  Below the causeway, the tourmaline-colored water was choppy and full of boats weaving their wakes around channel markers and the pylons of the bridge.  The tram eased into the station at the Piazza de Roma, and my little family entered the city that was once the wealthy stronghold of the mighty Venetian Empire.

Grand Canal

The number-one activity listed by every travel guide for a Venetian visit is to get lost in the city, and we wasted no time doing just that. After walking for thirty minutes, we had no idea where we were, and we didn’t care.  The entire spectacle of Venice is a sprawling conglomerate of small, sharply turning streets crossing canals with curved bridges and lined with alleys that can lead to a dead end or a plaza centered around a five-hundred-year-old church.  Some of the dead ends are punctuated with an orange brick wall while others offer a clear view into a canal with the water lapping over the curb into the alley.  The curiosity created by the twisting streets and narrow alleys of Venice is completely compelling because turning every corner produces wonder and surprise with absolutely no disappointment or worry about going the wrong way.  

We walked for hours getting deeper into the city stopping often to take pictures of villas rising from the canals, their windows flanked by peeling faded green shutters and decorated with boxes full of bright red flowers.  A few meters above the water line, the stucco of the buildings has crumbled to expose the sandy orange-brick substrate. Salts effervesced over the centuries create a flowing, grayish white patina over the masonry.  The villa facades that remain intact are lime-washed with tones of ocher, sienna, rosy pink, and earth brown all faded with time, creating variations of color in the thousands.  The cumulative effect of all the textures and layers of color is hypnotizing, and for an old painter who loves hand-crafted beauty, completely inspiring.  One of my favorite aspects of the painting trade is faux and decorative work, and for many years I spent hundreds of hours creating textures and colors on my customers’ walls in an effort to replicate surfaces similar to the ones I saw in Venice today.  

There were numerous shops along the streets selling anything from leather purses to colorful Venetian masks, but we were only in the market for more views of the city.  We stopped in a stand-up cafe for lunch and picked out a huge ham and cheese calzone and a generous slice of sausage pizza, which the proprietor heated up and served to us with a smile.  The food was delicious and filling and gave us the energy to keep walking, this time with the purpose of reaching the Rialto Bridge and San Marco Square.  The travel shows would have one believe that the streets of Venice are a labyrinth of no return, but once the combination of manufactured and hand-scrawled signs and arrows are deciphered, navigating the city is not that difficult.  

We eventually crossed the famous Rialto bridge that links the major sections of the city and then made our way to the  San Marco Square with its imposing brick tower, surrounded by the Doge’s Palace and anchored by the San Marco Basilica.  This section of Venice is the center of the city’s ancient wealth and power and still stands in testament to its former glory.  Even in the off season, the square was crowded with tourists, but the line to tour the basilica was not too long, and we were able to walk leisurely through the church and learn about its history while taking in the beauty of the mosaics and marble construction of the building.  After all this walking and touring, ice cream was in order, and we savored cones scooped high with multiple flavors of gelato while sitting in the shadow of the basilica.

Our day in Venice was drawing to a close, and we had a long walk back to the Piazza de Roma, but Deena managed to figure out the public water transport, and we enjoyed an hour-long tour of the entire lagoon perimeter.  While not as romantic as a gondola cruise, it was a quarter of the price, and the views of the city from the water were captivating.  Back at our Piazza, we waited thirty minutes for a bus that never came, and Deena came to our rescue again by figuring out a return tram to the mainland.  We did manage to catch the right bus back to Zelarino, made a quick trip to the large supermarket, stuffed our backpacks with groceries, and biked back to the farm.  Deena made delicious prosciutto sandwiches with pesto, tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese, which we devoured while extolling the many attributes of Venice.  

The city is built on pilings, and according to experts on Italian cities built on pilings, Venice is slowly sinking, but it looked pretty stable to me.  I’ve always heard through the years that the canals of Venice are polluted and have a terrible smell, but we found them to be full of sparkling blue water that was odor free.  The beauty of Venice comes from the layers of its time-worn, faded glory, and we wondered if the city in full color and completeness as it was centuries ago, would be any more impressive.  Would the founding Venetian fathers look upon the city today and exclaim, “Hey!  Someone call Leonardo, this place needs a paint job pronto!”   Venice is quite simply one of the coolest places I’ve ever been, and I’m thankful I could experience its beauty with my family.  There are visions of beauty all over the world in the form of landscapes, waterways, and wildlife, but Venice is in a class by itself.