Day Ten

DAY TEN

Today started out with a sleep in (for me at least) which was much appreciated given the stress of trying to find a restaurant last night in the crazy streets and roads of an Italian city in a camper van. The spectacular scenery that is the mountains of northern Italy had me quite hopeful for the lowlands in the south. As it turned out and much to my surprise, a massive industrial and commercial area surrounds Venice’s estuary. The architecture of the city is nondescript and the skyline is broken with smoke stacks and industrial structures. Our consolation has been to find a camp site right next to the ferry terminal for Venice - we’re parked about ten meters from the shore and can see Venice’s lights across the waters.

The morning passed in a fairly relaxed manner as we attended to our emails and washing.
By 1pm we decided to head out for a walk around Venice. After buying a three day pass we boarded the ferry for the 20 minute crossing. Venice was built in the middle ages on several islands in the estuary, but subsequently a causeway with road and railway and a railway station have been added onto the city using land reclaimed by dredging. The new buildings look like something out of the soviet era - totally bland and functional – which is very strange given both the historic nature of Venice and it being a massive tourist center. Approaching beyond these dull buildings, rows of run down flats line the cities shores before the view opens up to the expected Venetian panorama of church steeples and renaissance style architecture.

Disembarking on the shores of Venice, one can immediately see why it is know as a city of romance. Couples stroll down cobbled canal lined streets and crowds throng through small passageways filled with little shops selling food, ice-cream, local glass products, electronica and clothing.. The passageways link larger open spaces or Piazza’s all of which invariably have a colorful café and massive ornate church. Venice is a very pretty city - It’s renaissance and gothic architecture is a delight to the eye and given the gondolas, cafes and shops it is a must see for anyone interested in taking in the sights of Europe.

But that being said it does also have its downsides - the buildings are in a dilapidated state with most buildings having large portions of plaster missing with brick exposed, the paint work is nearly always stained or peeled off completely. Graffiti is fairly common and the canals and streets are fairly dirty, though not cluttered with litter. The canals can also stink from the sewage that is released into them, but fortunately for us being winter we only had odors here and there on our walk. In the end we covered 6.7km on foot, taking in most of the key buildings and bridges. After my first day in the city I must say that my overall impression is positive and I’m glad to have more time to explore its charms over the next few days.

As a side note I’ve been impressed with Italian cooking – last nights hand made pizza was an experience and Kurt and I tried out spaghetti and meat balls as a late lunch which was very tasty. I also had some ice-cream which was by far the best I’ve tasted in a long time.