Saturday 16 July 2016

SATURDAY 16TH – VENICE


 

We arrived here at 7:00am this morning with a spectacular cruise up the Grand Canal to the cruise ship mooring area. Given that we are near enough to the tallest structure in the city, we had a bird's eye view of the city.


After we got on board ship yesterday, the weather turned really foul and we lost the beautiful smooth Mediterranean we have enjoyed thus far even to the extent of causing some movement in the ship overnight but we woke to a beautiful fine calm day today.

The ship is docked at the western end of Venice near a convenient people mover which takes you to the edge of town. You can of course take a vaporetto (water bus) to the centre of town but we were happy to start at the edge and work our way by walking through the narrow streets, crossing many canals, to get from one end to the other.

 
We are told that Venice is three kilometres by 2.5 kilometres by 3 kilometres in area so theoretically, it is not far from one side to the other but there is of course, no direct route from anywhere to anywhere else.

 
Today was a walking day. Tomorrow we plan to get a day ticket for the vaporettos and explore further afield. We are here until Monday evening.

This weekend is a large festival in Venice and, if we can stay up late enough, there is apparently a very large fireworks display tonight. We were warned that the city would be very crowded but, when we stopped walking at three o'clock, everywhere except St. Mark's Square was comfortably unpopulated.

 

We have been advised that we won't be going to Istanbul during the second half of the cruise as planned, no doubt because of the terrorism. The alternate extra Greek island ports look pretty good.

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