Venice - Italy redeemed

After an ignominious start to our Italian adventure, Venice is making up for it in spades.

We set off on Tuesday morning, 18 November, in glorious sunshine.

The markets are bustling, boats are cruising up and down the canals, and the odd gullible tourist has been sucked in to a gondola ride.

I stop off at a WIND store for another attempt at getting a 3G data SIM, and this time it’s third time lucky. 4Gb for 35 euros - should keep us going for two weeks. Takes three hours to activate, and is a bit slow at times, but at last I’m connected to the world again.

The best way to get an overview of Venice is by boat (cycleways are few and far between!). We hop on a vaporetto (ferry) near the train station, and wend our way down the Grand Canal in a lazy S to St Marks square.

Ah - there’s the Bridge of Sighs - so named as it was the last glimpse of Venice prisoners got as they were lead from the law courts to the dungeons - including legendary lothario Casanova.

Venice is a funny place. There is a sense of grunge and dilapidation with many of the buildings. Plaster is peeling off the brickwork and a lot of the walls are black with mould. It wouldn’t surprise me if they had a rising damp problem.

Then of course there are majestic palaces, towers and cathedrals, but at present we don’t feel like parting with a substantial number or euros to go inside.

We’ve seen lots of ornate interiors on our travels, and more are just sensory overload.

More fun is just looking at Venetians getting on with their every day life - shipping materials up and down the canals in little utility boats, haggling for the best deal at the fish market, or setting up and taking down the raised walking platforms for acqua alta.

Acqua alta? High water.

Venice is slowly sinking into the ooze of the lagoon, and already many ground floor rooms are uninhabitable and just used for storage. At king tides sirens sound and the walking platforms are assembled as water sloshes over the edges of the canals and inundates the footpaths. Steel plates with rubber gaskets are put in place at the doorways, and designer gumboots feature prominently in the shoe shops. If I had worries about Shanghai with imminent sea level rises, I’ve got even more worries for Venice.

Venice is also very tricky to navigate on foot. A lattice of little canals and lanes twist and turn in every direction, and if the sun’s not readily visible it’s easy to get disoriented. Thank goodness for iPhones and GPS, and pre-loaded maps showing where the bridges are.

Pauline and I have been on the road for six weeks now, and we’re in alignment on just about everything. Augurs well for the future. But we do have subtle differences in our approach to sight-seeing.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a left-brain traveller.

I do a bit of background reading, identify the attractions I want to visit on a digital map, and join up the stars with an efficient shortest path algorithm. A little blue GPS dot guides me unerringly to where I want to go.

Pauline is a right-brain traveller. “We haven’t seen that area of Venice there”, she declares, stabbing at a broad swathe of the map with her finger. “Ok”, I say, “You lead”. We set off to explore. We head down a long and interesting little lane, and nearly fall into the canal at the end of it. There’s no bridge. We backtrack. After more wandering we discover we’ve done a tight loop and ended up where we started from - not quite the intention.

But to make matters worse, Pauline’s so busy looking up at the sights and to get oriented she doesn’t notice the large dog shit on the pavement.

The next 10 minutes are spent looking for sticks and puddles, and extracting what she can from the treads of her shoe. I helpfully ask if she’d like me to lead, but get a rather frosty reception. I offer her the use of my toothbrush when we get home, which cheers her up a bit. And of course we have some photos of places in Venice that I can almost guarantee no other tourist has.

There’s more to Venice than the main island of course.

To guard against the place being razed by fire, Venetian glassmakers were banished to the island of Murano in the 13th century. 

 It’s great to get out on a boat again, and in no time we’re wandering the trinket shops and being invited in to glass-making demonstrations.

Perhaps it’s the end of the season, perhaps our taste in glass just doesn’t match what’s on offer, and we come away slightly disappointed.

Burano, on the other hand, is delightful.

A bit further out into the lagoon and the home of Venetian lace-making, Burano is famed for its picturesque multi-coloured houses.

The vibe is good, the scenery (including its own leaning tower) great, and both the food and beer good.

On the subject of food (one of the main reasons for travelling), it’s good to get away from the heavier German meals and into the lighter and more flavoursome Italian cuisine. Despite its Neapolitan origins, pizza is economical and widely available throughout Italy. But it is Italian pizza - not kiwi pizza. Spurning pizzas with bland ingredients, we choose one with gorgonzola - this’ll give us a flavour hit.

But we’re disappointed when the pizza arrives. The gorgonzola block has been waved over the pizza, and a couple of crumbs have dropped onto the surface. I remember now that Italian pastas and pizzas have a lot of carb filling, but are relatively modest on toppings and flavoursome ingredients. I wonder how well a Hell Pizza franchise would go down in Italy - I suspect not well for a number of reasons. But it does remind me that back home we’re blessed for choice, with both quality and quantity when it comes to ingredients to stimulate the taste buds.

Our final attraction in Venice is a modern art stop.

Peggy Guggenheim acquired a superb collection of mid-20th century pieces, many of which I’d be delighted to have in my home, but certainly some I’d consign to the rubbish tip too. Art is a very personal thing - I want it to be both decorative, and to make a statement. What is the artist saying in the political or social context of his/her time? Why do I like surrealists like Miro, Ernst and Dali while Jackson Pollock’s abstract expressionism leaves me cold? And why is it necessary to push artistic boundaries, if the current boundaries are there for a reason, and overstepping them just results in contrived ugliness? The best place for some of this stuff is indeed a gallery where students of art history and learn from past mistakes, but it has no place in my consciousness. Perhaps I’m an anarchist, then perhaps I’m not.

We see another Giacometti in the garden.

Millions of dollars worth of sculpture out in the open air. Hope their security’s good. I suspect Pauline is reflecting on what size she needs to be to fit into her wedding dress, and reconciling it with her last healthy nut treat glued together with just a little toffee. We’ll be able to put a bit of elastic in the dress I’m sure. Fortunately my suit rental can be done last thing - I’m certain I’ve expanded a size while travelling. Too much good food, good beer, good wine, and only walking for exercise. Looks like we’re both in for a summer of salads and aerobics.

After three full days in Venice we’ve done our dash, and we've loved it.

But there’s more of Italy to explore, so where next? The base plan is to head for Florence, but a beautiful sunny weekend is forecast for Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast. We set our sights for Naples instead, but as we speed through Tuscany on the train we remember why we liked this part of the country so much last time. Don’t worry, Florence, we’ll be coming back before we fly out of Rome. We rubbed the boar's snout, remember?

Note to self - buy a new toothbrush in Sorrento.