Day One In Venice

It is Sunday morning and neither of us have slept well.  It is a combination of things. The apartment is very damp feeling and the humidity is high.  The bed is rock hard (we prefer softer).  And I have been ill most of the night. 

But on very little sleep we both are showered and out the door at 8 am.  Today we have a walking tour of Venice with a gondola ride.  Meeting time is 9 in St. Mark's Square.

It is very foggy this morning!  Very foggy, that even walking in the maze of Venice is more difficult.  We manage thanks to Google Maps App.  Sure we made a few wrong turns but we survived.

Bernie stops for espresso (I still don't want to eat anything) and he sips and enjoys it while the locals walk by on their way to work, church, family.  It feels great to be back in Venice.

We do notice how dirty the city is though - a lot of garbage left over from the previous night of party I guess.  But the workers are out cleaning up and washing down streets from the smells (I will let you figure out the smells).  But somehow the luster of beautiful Venice is lost to me at this moment.

We walk into St. Mark's Square and it is a glow with light from the sun trying to get through. Fog settling in around us.  And so few people, and those that are here are setting up for their stalls for the soon to arrive tourists. It is a great spot to be early in the morning.

Our tour is an hour and a half walking tour around the area and our guide is fabulous.  Our group is around 12 people and we all have the radio transmitters so we an hear her clearly.  

We learned so much more about the city and we are so glad we took it.  We booked it through Viator.

After the tour we have a gondola ride.  This is our first time taking a gondola.  But going as 6 saves you and that is how many the gondola can hold.  Cost is 80E so divided among 6 it is reasonable. Here is the official pricing for gondolas. 

Now I am glad I did the ride, it was beautiful and I can cross it off my list.  But note it is a tourist thing to do, it is expensive, and you sort of feel like you are on a ride at a theme park.  As you ride down the canals in a convoy among all the other tourists, each one trying to capture the perfect picture it looses it's luster.  

We try to catch a traghetto at the San Marco stop.  A traghetto is a gondola like rowboat that shuttles locals across the Grand Canal.  There are designated ones and I went to the right spot.  When I asked a local worker at the pier he brushed me off and said "no longer works".  Okay guess we will walk back home the long way.  Note we later find out it does still work.

Walking back to the apartment we are slowed by the crowds.  Now this is October and it is lower season, but if this is low season I hate to think how it is in the summer.  We were told by our guide that is customary to stay to the right when walking.  So we try to fit in and push our way through the crowds (like the locals do).  Our walk home that should of taken 20 minutes takes 35.

I am feeling very weak and need to stop often to rest.

As soon as we are in, we crash - we are both tired and I am not feeling good, but at least I am no longer tossing my cookies.

But to end on a positive note, we loved the tour, we loved being out early before the crowds, and we got to ride a gondola.