Side Trips: Venice

 

Venice is about an hour trip from the airport by water taxi or water bus.  Everything on the island moves by water or on hand carts, there are no cars.  Even cement for construction arrives by barges, with each barge carrying up to a half dozen cement trucks with their cargos rolling.

If you are looking for an overload on fine Art History, or want to earn a black belt in extreme shopping, Venice has some amazing things to offer.  But from mid morning into the early evening, the streets are clogged with tourists who outnumber the residents during the summer months.  The lines of people waiting to see attractions like the inside of St. Mark's Basilica, look like the kind of lines you'd see at Disney World.

Kathy managed to find us lodging in a quaint little B&B housed in a Renaissance era building that's located on a corner where a shop keepers' side street converges with one of Venice's famous canals.  There is small a brass pack on the building and an electronic entrance keyboard near the door, but nothing else to indicate what a gem of quiet elegance lies inside.  It is less than half a block away from Piazza San Marco, St. Mark's Basilica, the Doge's Palace, and dozens of little outdoor cafes.  The bad news is, that it lies even closer to a major upscale shopping district.