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It is no wonder that with all the planes, buses and trains we’ve been on the past two weeks that we are both sick. My cold started about 5 days ago and affected me during our Florence stay. Christine probably caught her cold from me and is being affected during this Venice stay; she’s a lot sicker than I was. It takes a bit of a toll for sure and zaps stamina and some interest in doing touristy things. But we will persevere and get past our colds.

We decided to venture out around our neighborhood a bit. As I mentioned, Giudecca is very residential with a mix of new buildings, mostly apartment blocks, and older renovated buildings. We love the sounds of the neighborhood with kids playing, older persons standing along the narrow passageways chatting with someone through a window, and seeing the laundry hanging out over the streets. There are no cars here, or anywhere in center Venice for that matter. It is such a relief to be able to walk without the fear of getting mowed down by a motorcycle or car. Venice doesn’t even permit bicycles in the streets. So, it is a very walkable city and an enjoyable one to walk through.
We then ventured on to our first solo vaporetto ride. We took the #2 from Palanca which would take us all the way down the Grand Canal to San Marco square, the biggest tourist destination in Venice. Our trip down the Grand Canal was awesome.
Florence is a stunning city; Venice is an exciting city. There is so much hustle and bustle in the lagoon and canals; boats everywhere zipping around. Everything is delivered via boat and so there are long boats packed with all sorts of things going up and down the Grand Canal and in and out of tiny side canals. The vaporettos are loaded with passengers banging into the vaporetto stations all up and down the Grand Canal. The sleek water taxis buzz in and out between all the other boats, and the gondolas plod along trying not to get run over by some other little boat that is zooming down the canal. The Grand Canal is certainly a happening place.
Just where the Grand Canal enters the lagoon is one of the most distinctive landmarks in Venice. It’s the Santa Maria della Salute church. The translation is Our Lady of Health. This church was built by the grateful survivors of the 1630 plague that wiped out most of the population of Europe. This is the church we can see across the lagoon from our flat. I, at first, thought we were seeing St. Mark’s, but now know that we’re seeing La Salute church. It is a magnificent building; I actually like it better than St. Mark’s.

We disembarked at the San Marco station and moseyed our way through all the souvenir stalls along the lagoon to the Doge’s Palace. This building has rather frilly pink marble on the outside. This was home to the Venetian rulers who were in power for 4 centuries from 1150 to 1550. During that time, the Venetian Republic was numero uno in Europe. The famous Bridge of Sighs is an elevated bridge crossing over a canal from the palace to a building housing the prison. The Bridge of Sighs got its name from people being convicted and sentenced by the Doge to prison, being taken directly from the palace to the prison crossing over the canal through this covered bridge, and from the window in the bridge the prisoner would take his last look outside for a long time and sigh.
We then found a café and had a Sorrentino pizza. It was really yummy. Christine had an Aperol Spritz, and me a beer. It was fun sitting out watching all the people passing by through the passageway to the square. The café was Conca d’Oro and its logo had the Sicily symbol, which we figured meant that the family that started the trattoria probably came from Sicily.
We then found our way to San Marco square. This is a huge square with St. Mark’s at one end, the Correr Museum at the opposite end and old offices on one side and new offices on the opposite side. All around the square are shops under the arched walkways and cafes in the square. Most of the cafes have a band playing music. I imagine at night the square is alive with entertainment and trattorias full of people having dinner.
St. Mark’s Basilica is a real mishmash of architectural styles, both Eastern and Western. It has Roman-style arches over the doorways, golden Byzantine mosaics, a roofline ringed with pointed Gothic pinnacles, and Muslim-shaped onion domes. It’s really an unusual building and some say it is the most interesting church in Europe.
We then decided to walk to the Rialto Bridge which meant entering into the winding, narrow passageways that take you who knows where. It was fun, though, because there were lots of interesting shop windows to look at, lovely bridges to cross over with nice views down the side canals, and various squares to walk through. We really had no idea in which direction we were going, but I eventually found where we were on a map and could then steer us in the right direction. When we were close to the Rialto Bridge, a woman asked me which way San Marco was. I sounded like I knew what I was talking about when I pointed out the helpful sign pointing towards San Marco and told her to just keep looking up at the sides of buildings and she should see signs pointing the way. She was very appreciative.
The Rialto Bridge is probably the 2nd most popular attraction in Venice and we could tell we were getting close because the crowd was getting larger. There are over 400 bridges in Venice, but only 4 cross the Grand Canal. The Rialto was the very first to do so. The first Rialto was made by boats tied together with a platform over them. Then the second Rialto was a wooden drawbridge. The current Rialto was built in 1588 and remained the only bridge across the Grand Canal until 1854. The reason the bridge was originally built was to connect the political side of Venice with the economic side. The Rialto marks the halfway point of the Grand Canal.

We got on the vaporetto back to Giudecca at the Rialto station. We had a pleasant ride back up the canal and across the channel. We strolled back through the neighborhood, stopped into the Coop for some throat lozenges, and returned to the flat feeling tired, but like we had had a very pleasant day learning about getting around in Venice. We enjoyed being in the flat, watching the activity at the boating club across the canal, and settling in for the evening.
Tip for San Marco- you MUST go in. The lines are long, indeed, but get there early.
The Santa Maria is the one we saw from our hotel which was right at the boat stop. It is one of the ones with the cafe out front.
BTW- in our experience, walking around venice was NOT so easy because of all the stairs that went up and over the canals.
Glad you are having a better time of it.
Thanks for posting.