Venice

Today we decided to travel down to Venice, so we headed off rather early and travelled to Podova and then caught the train out to Venice.  It was about 2 hours on the road and another 30 or so by train.  The trip had its up and downs we did not realise we had to ‘validate’ the train ticket that had come out of a ticket machine and we got fined Thirty Euro for each ticket!!  Seriously!!???  The very unsmiling train conductor (who took our fine!!) was even more miserable than the three men that guarded the toilets and took your money so you could scuttle in and pee.

Once we got to Venice, all was forgotten and we became overwhelmed with the mystery and beauty of the place!  I think if you have not seen Venice, you could not imagine by looking at photos, what it is like.  The place is absolutely packed with tourists and there is also quite a lot of locals as well, so it really is shoulder to shoulder.  We jumped on the packed ferry and headed up the waterway passing heaps of little water ferries, boats and of course Gondalas, gondolas and more............. (thanks Monty Python)

 The water is a real brine and there is quite a bit of random rubbish around, that is sad.  On the bases of buildings and posts, there is seaweed and shellfish growing which adds to the dark, slime looking effect. 


Some of the houses along the waterway have subsided and you can see where water has been able to get inside on hightides or perhaps storms.  It seems Venice has been here for a couple of thousand years, with reports of foundations back in 421AD  and you can see it has been an opulent place in the 9th to 12th Centuries when it was in full flight as a trading centre and I can only imagine what it was like in those early times.  The colours are vibrant and shutters have previously been painted all sorts of bright colours.  You can tell by the architecture that it spans a heap of history.

There are little waterways off the main route and they narrow down in places where it is hard to imagine boats being able to traverse them.



Cute little bridges take you up and over the waterways and it is a maze of paths on both sides, that although packed with people and shops is a bit overwhelming and lonely.

Some of the private houses that you can see into from the waterways look amazing and very well done but some others look like shanty towns with people living on top of each other in small apartments.



 I found the sculptures fascinating and as you can see on the right some of the buildings have amazing paintings that have been restored.