Venice Part 1

On Monday the 24th we took the train to Venice. Train travel in Italy is great. It's cheap and the trains pretty much go everywhere. The second class seats are large and comfortable. I can't imagine paying for the first class seats, as I can't think of what would make them worth the extra expense. Anyway, we arrived in Venice that afternoon.

Venice is incredibly photogenic. It's also a lot larger than I had thought. It's not huge, by any means, but it was larger than I had expected. There are no cars in Venice, so it makes walking around the city much safer and more enjoyable than many places I have been. I was also very surprised at how clean it was. The streets are clean, and graffiti is minimal. They must spend a great deal of time and effort cleaning the streets.

Venice is also a very well run city, probably the most well run I have been to in Italy. This is likely due to the massive amount of tourist traffic the town gets. The vaperettos (public water taxis) are clean and always seemed to be on time. These large boats plow up and down the Grand Canal. Since the Grand Canal winds through a large part of the city, you can get pretty close to about anywhere on it. It's not cheap (7 euros per ride) but it is a great way to get around. We finally came to our senses and bought a multi-day pass. Expensive, but totally worth it for the ease of not having to buy individual tickets.

L's sister and her husband met us at the vaporetto stop nearest our apartment, which was San Angelo. They then led us back to the apartment, which L's sister had found. Holy crap! That is all I can say. It is called Ca' Corner-Gheltoff, and was definitely the nicest place I have ever stayed on any vacation. It was a palace, or at least a part of one. I mean this literally-it was carved out of a former palace. We had two living rooms, a TV room, three bedrooms, three full bathrooms, and a full kitchen. I cannot say enough nice things about this place. The two living rooms had windows that opened up onto the Grand Canal. This was the view from our living room windows.

Yep, that's the Grand Canal there

Of course it also had its own private boat slip and water entrance. I can't imagine a nicer place to stay, at least one that normal, not super rich people could afford. Seriously, go look at the pictures on the website.

It also had a courtyard that it shared with a couple of other buildings, all of which I think were once part of the palace complex. The door under the arch is the entrance to a foyer which leads back to the water stop. Stairwell off each side lead up to apartments.

Apartment courtyard. The window above the door in the arch was our bedroom window.

One other thing that surprised me about Venice was how uncrowded and quiet it was at night. Admittedly, we were in the off season, and the weather was not great, but first thing in the morning there would be very few people out. At night, after about 10, it would be almost deserted. We would often be walking back from dinner and see very few people. At night it was really quiet. I would go out at night to the courtyard pictured above to smoke a cigar, and it would be dead quiet-much quieter than my own neighborhood at home, which is not exactly loud. That feature really surprised and pleased me.

Like I said, Venice is incredibly beautiful and photogenic. Here are a few random photos.