{"id":765,"date":"2024-04-12T21:41:15","date_gmt":"2024-04-12T19:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/taylorcpt.co.za\/?p=765"},"modified":"2024-04-12T21:41:15","modified_gmt":"2024-04-12T19:41:15","slug":"venice-day-2-thursday-11th-april-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taylorcpt.co.za\/?p=765","title":{"rendered":"Venice Day 2 \u2013 Thursday 11th April 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What a city! What a place! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Venice is a city like nothing else we have ever experienced!  It is made up of about 120 islands, most of which are connected by about 450 bridges.  There are no cars in this area, and the roads are what we would refer to as alley ways or walk ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything happens using boats \u2013 from rubbish collection to moving house, from commuting to the fire brigade, from police to builders with wheel barrows on boats, you name it, it happens on the water!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We started off having breakfast here, and then set out to San Marco Square \u2013 we went to see Doge\u2019s palace which was interesting with lots of gold everywhere.  How one can sleep with ceilings like this baffles me.  I prefer my good old white ceiling!  We walked through the prison section and across the bridge of sighs.  The bridge got its name as the prisoners knew when they crossed this bridge and looked out at the lagoon, it would be the last time they would see the lagoon as they were either never going to get out of prison alive or they were going to be executed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Walking through Venice is a maze \u2013 if you imagine walking down narrow alleys with buildings of a few stories high on both sides of you \u2013 left, then right, over a bridge, then 2nd<\/sup> left, then 3rd<\/sup> right and so it goes, then you will get an idea of Venice.\u00a0 William walks with his phone directing us from either Google Maps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We went to see the Scala Contarini del Bovolo which is a spiral staircase.  Very interesting \u2013 all made of marble. We climbed up the steps and had some great views of Vencie from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From there we set off to find the narrowest street in Venice.  Oh my word \u2013 narrow it is.  William\u2019s shoulders were too wide for some parts where there are external pipes!  A very different version of a road!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Having walked so much, we felt that we had earned an ice cream \u2013 sadly it was a very exciting ice cream, but anyhow!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We then walked down some \u201croads\u201d that we hadn\u2019t seen before \u2013 and found a supermarket.  We had found a Spar earlier \u2013 same logo as at home.  I bought a hoodie \u2013 and bartered with the guy and saved 5 Euro.  We headed back to our hotel to put our feet up and bought a Calzone Pizza (folded over pizza) for lunch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After a short snooze for me, and a rest for Wiilliam, we headed off again as we had booked a Grand Canal Cruise.  This was so informative, and lovely to see everything from the water.  The Grand Canal is an inverted s shape.  There were only 7 of us on the cruise excluding the guide and skipper.  There are only 4 bridges along the Grand Canal, but for one day of the year they put a 5th bridge across as there is a festival thanking God for health \u2013 marking the end of an epidemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One cannot visit Venice without having a gondola ride!\u00a0 There were 4 of us on the ride \u2013 a younger couple from France and ourselves.\u00a0 It was lovely \u2013 the gondoliers no longer sing \u2013 we passed a few gondolas where there was a musician on board, which was quite festive.\u00a0 It is quite an art maneuvering the gondolas in the narrow canals \u2013 particularly when there are 3 or sometimes 4 abreast!\u00a0 We thoroughly enjoyed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We then treated ourselves to a drink on San Marco\u2019s square looking out across the lagoon and watching the people.  The weather was about 23 degrees with no wind.  It was lovely!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Having already walked about 20km today at this point we headed back to our hotel to rest our weary limbs and start getting organised for an early departure tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last thing we wanted to do in Venice was see Venice by night, as last night the weather was awful and there was nothing to see.  So, weary limbs and all, off we set again to see Venice by night.  Well, it did not disappoint us.  It was lovely to see San Marco\u2019s square by night as well as the canals, and packed restaurants.  Amazing how many restaurants they are, and most were buzzing.  By this point, William\u2019s blisters were eina, and I had no energy left so we wandered home very slowly, collecting a take away for supper on our way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We ate, and William watched the scores of his Liverpool march \u2013 which did not make him too happy, and I did some work before crashing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Venice is a beautiful, unique city!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a city! What a place!  Venice is a city like nothing else we have ever experienced!  It is made up of about 120 islands, most of which are connected by about 450 bridges.  There are no cars in this area, and the roads are what we would refer to as alley ways or walk<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-venice"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taylorcpt.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taylorcpt.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taylorcpt.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taylorcpt.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taylorcpt.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=765"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/taylorcpt.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":817,"href":"https:\/\/taylorcpt.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765\/revisions\/817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taylorcpt.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taylorcpt.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taylorcpt.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}