Venice, take #1
View from Rialto.
Last week boyfriend and I went to a one day trip to Venice. We visited the city and two of the islands - Murano and Burano. We saw Doge's Palace (also the underground prisons and walked over the Bridge of Sighs; and by the way, the palace is breath-takingly spectacular) and the tower of St. Marco's basilica, from where we got a good view of the city. Unfortunately there wasn't time to do more. The queue in front of the Basilica was just too long (since the entrance is free) and had we waited we wouldn't have had the time to see the Doge's Palace.
We spent quite some time on Burano, but saw very little. We sampled their biscuits (1kg flour and 13 eggs!) and saw a lace workshop. We also peeked into the church, whose tower is leaning, similar to the leaning tower in Pisa. Again, there wasn't time to visit the lace museum, but we did have time to walk around the city with our guide and smell the water from canals.
On Murano we only paid a visit to a traditional glass factory and saw the process of making various objects from glass. Again, there was time to purchase various glass-made objects, but not time to see any other part of the island.
Overall, I was slightly disappointed. We spent 3 hours in Venice and that's decidedly too little time to see the city. We never even got close to La Fenice. The furthest we went was to Rialto and from there boyfriend and I went back towards the Canal Grande. (I am so sorry we forgot to take our camera with us, or you'd be treated to the real Venice.)
Because the ticket for Doge's Place is also valid for 3 other museums and since we didn't see the Basilica and other parts of the town, we decided to go back in either late September or early October on our own and do a REAL tour of the city. I was nervous because our guide planned the tour as though everyone's intention in Venice was to buy as many items of Murano glass and other senseless souvenirs and see very little of the city outside the shops. In my opinion, we also spent far too much time on the boats travelling this and the other way. But the guide did satisy the majority - since boyfriend and I were the only ones in the group who only bought some Burano biscuits. Others simply had to take Venice home with them - they bought biscuits, lace, glasses and souvenir gondolas. Such a shame they spent so much time in the shops they missed the real Venice. No one from our group (apart from boyfriend and myself) went to a single museum.
And another thing - why oh, why is Venice always portrayed (let's say in films) as a dreamy little city on the water where everybody lives in an old palace and runs either a gondola or ice-cream business? When in fact this is a very urban, fast-paced, expensive city overcrowded with tourists and where all the traffic happens on the sea (with vaporetti instead of buses) and no one in their right mind would want to take a gondola ride in the middle of the summer, because the best you get from the experience is 40 minutes of the nasty smell from the canals.
We're also travlling to London in September and then in late February possbily to Muenchen.
P.S. The comments in a single post now work, thanks to the wonderful designer of this blog!
8 Comments:
Maybe you should go to Venice in winter. Me and my girlfriend were there in December 2004. We were in Ankaran in the morning and there we decided to visit Venice, since we both have taken a day off from school and were already half way there. It wasn't as crowded as I remembered it from one trip in spring and it was warm enough to walk without a pullover. We walked through Venice for about four hours and enjoyed it very much.
You could have bought a disposable camera.
Heh, what did you expect :D it's not a medieval city anymore, plus it's flooded with turists, plus it has a pretty good university, plus it often (or all the time) has excellent art exhibitions which flood it with visitors some more.
But I find it breathtaking anyway.
For the next visit I suggest you take the train from Trst - I don't know the exact price but it's really really cheap. Then you can spend the day the way you wish to.
Marko - our tickets to the museums are only valid 3 months (that's till 13th November so we can't really go then - or we could, but we decided to take the advantage of the pre-paid tickets). We could have used our mobile phones - the photos wouldn't be of superb quality, but we'd at least have something to show... unfortunately we only remembered this on the way home. More luck next time...
Lilit - that was my first time to Venice and not that I expected them to be the quiet, uncrowded little town, but every time the film (or documentary) takes place in Venice they only show the quiet canals and the empty St. Marco's. When do they film it, then? At 4 a.m.? Perhaps in winter as Marko suggested... ;) I dislike that whenever they show a gondola it's the quintessential Venice, when there is so much more to Venice than that. (But I'll live. :)
Oh, how lucky you are. I was in Venice two times now and I still can't get enough of it. Especially their language, which is more appealing than any other.
I'm not so fond of Italian myself, but I admit the city is quite something. :)
Maybe you could go there in November, when you have holidays? Maybe this year we will have the advantage of early snowfall. (I foresee plenty of hate mail for wishing snow early...)
belgothiel: I highly doubt it snows in Venice... maybe once in a while, but I bet it melts soon... it's on the sea, remember? :)
It rains, though, in winter, a lot. The streets get all flooded and you have to walk on special planks. But the grey Venice is much more charming (to me) than the sunny city filled with Japanese turists ;)
The weather definitely isn't too good lately.
[ Post a Comment ]