It's not just waterways in Venice, but also a lot of very narrow alleys as shown here. It is very easy to get lost - we found out the hard way in our first few hours in Venice. Upon arriving at our hotel we booked a gondola ride and we had 90 minutes to get to where it started. The hotel desk clerk told us it would be a 20-30 minute walk, but he didn't have a map to give us. He showed us on a wall map and said it would be easy. It's not easy when these narrow alleys twist and turn. It took us 100 minutes of speed walking, after getting lost several times, before we arrived 10 minutes late for our gondola ride.
We were the last ones on the last of six gondolas that went out together - there were three couples on each boat.
One of the gondolas had an accordion player and a singer who serenaded the six boats as we took our trip up the Grand Canal and then into some smaller canals.
Because of the singer we attracted a lot of attention from those crossing the bridges. In some places the canals became very narrow.
This young couple had the middle seat on our boat, and because we were facing backwards we sat facing them. At one point they kind of huddled together, and then I noticed that she was crying and had a ring on her finger. He had just proposed to her. We became their engagement photographers! If we hadn't been lost and late we wouldn't have had the best seat in the boat to view the romantic proposal!
The alleys have many bridges that cross the canals. This is a medium width canal in Venice.
In this picture you can see that the bottom floor of the buildings look abandoned and in need of repair, while the upper floors are much better preserved. Because of constant flooding and aging of the buildings, many first floor areas have been abandoned and only the upper floors are being used.
San Marcos Square at twilight.
This is a closer look at one of the Vaparetto, or water buses. This is a smaller one that goes around the outside of the island. The ones that travel the Grand Canal are larger. They are often crowded just like big city buses during rush hour.
The Grand Canal can be very busy with boat traffic as shown above. The boats all have to maintain a slow wake less speed, except emergency vehicles. An ambulance is shown below. We also saw police boats and a fire boat. They move fast and their wakes create havoc on the water ways.
The weather forecast the next day was for cloudy skies in the morning and possible rain showers the rest of the day. It was raining in the morning, but cleared up about noon and was good weather the remainder of the day. This is the Doges Palace in the foreground and the Basilica di San Marcos in the background.
A view of San Marcos Square from the balcony of the Basilica.
This picture is also taken from the balcony with the Doges Palace on the left behind us and the Grand Canal in the background.
Because it was Sunday, the Basilica was only open from 2-4 pm, but the museum, which included the balcony where the prior two pictures were taken was open. Part of the museum overlooks the Basilica, and since Mass was taking place, the lights were turned on the ceiling which is made up of millions of small mosaic tiles, most of which are gold colored. It made for quite a site. When we were able to enter the Basilica later the lights on the ceiling were turned off.
Here are more pictures of the incredible mosaic ceiling and the inside of the Basilica.
A front view of the San Marcos Basilica. It was built over a long period of time and different styles of architecture were used. It set a standard for "anything goes" and is actually very beautiful with all of the contrasts in the building.
The Campanile, bell tower, which rises impressively in San Marcos Square.
Another example of the narrow alleys. This is just off San Marcos Square and near where we found a place to eat.
We found a restaurant that had a lot of local gondoliers eating there so we figured it must be good. When they brought out the calzone I was glad that we had just ordered one to share - it was too big for the plate!
We had purchased a 24 hour Vaporetto pass so we started to jump on it until we saw something interesting and then we would get off and explore. We found this very nice house on a side canal. Notice that it has a private bridge where Diane is standing, and the boat to the left also belongs to the home owner. It has a lot of beautiful wood work.
Our hotel was on the outside edge of the main island. The canals that ran off of the edge were larger and had these higher bridges that would allow larger boats under them.
This is the Rialto Bridge - the largest bridge on the island. It has shops that line both sides of it and there is a lot of shopping in this area. Also, on the right notice all the Vaperetto boats that have stops here. Normally, there would only be a wharf for one or two Vaperetto's, but here there were six or seven wharfs.
One last look at this very unique city.
The next morning we caught a train to Verona, and then switched to a train to Munich which ran right through the Alps. From Munich we caught two more trains to Hohenschwangau, Germany which is located near the Austrian border.
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