3 May: Venice, day 1

Today we explored the city by foot and canal. Our first stop was San Marco (St. Mark’s square), where sitting on something that’s not a seat is penalised just as severely as making graffiti. Anyway I digress. We had a look around the square, and I went up the bell-tower to look at the view. (Mum stayed at the bottom – we didn’t realise you got to the top in a lift!)

View from San Marco bell-tower

Crowds along the waterfront near San Marco

From San Marco we went overland to the Ponte Rialto (‘Bridge of Sighs’). It was like a maze, with all these dead-ends that ended up in a canal, and churches hidden behind every other corner. I’m not sure what all the churches are used for now, but I’m guessing the vast majority don’t hold services. When we were in Edinburgh we noted how many of the old churches had been turned into cafes etc., but here they don’t seem to be used for anything.

From the Ponte Rialto we took another boat to Ponte Accademia. When I was growing up I had a jigsaw puzzle of Venice (in fact, I still have it) and this is the place the picture on it was taken from.

We decided to have dinner and then take the water-bus around again, thinking that at night-time the canals would be quite pretty. In actual fact, they were dark and deserted – especially compared to how busy they were during the day.
I’ve also realised that gondoliers are the cyclist-equivalent of the canal world!