I’ve walked for miles

25 August 2017

It’s a relief to report that all slept well. There is no ways that you can attempt the crowded maze that is Venice, without some renewed energy.

Our aim today was to see a different view of Venice. Sure, you could go see all the tourist attractions, and be trampled to your wits’ end by just about every nationality on the planet. But seeing the Venice where the real people live, must be a great deal more interesting. So we booked a Free Walking Tour of Venice. These tours are operated by locals who really just love to share the beauty of their city.

But first, we had to feed ourselves. We figure that, when you stay in self-catering accommodation, it forces you to do things that the locals have to do, and allows for a way better experience of the place you are visiting. Certainly the men had an experience worth sharing. They set off to the grocer across the canal from our accommodation, but stayed away for much longer than we figured could possibly be reasonable. It turns out that they had been scolded by one of the shop assistants for attempting to touch the bread to see how fresh it is, and were subsequently ignored in the queue for the fresh cold meat, to the point that a local lady pleaded the assistant to help them, seeing that they had been waiting for so very long….

Our walking tour took us largely through the area of Cannareggio. I have to admit that we struggled a little in the heat, and the distance may have contributed to our exhaustion, but Anna, our tour guide, was a great guide, and told us so much about the history of Venice, and how things work in this strange but beautiful city.

In a nutshell, the history goes a little like this:
In the times of the Roman Empire, a bunch of Romans decided that it would be a good idea to build a city in the seriously swampy area. They figured it would be safe. So they set about creating a base on which the city can be built, by planting large wooden beams (mostly Beech wood) in an upright position. In total, Venice has over a million such beams under it’s buildings, a 100 000 beams being situated under St Marc’s Basilica alone. Anyway – for some time, things went well. The Republic of Venice ticked along quite well. They knew how to build ships, and were quite handy with trade. But then some dude decided to discover the Americas, and things changed rapidly. The Venetians could not compete with the larger ships that did trade with the Americas, so they decided to do the next best thing.Use the excuse of being specialists in art, to really just party. For about two hundred years, the Venetians partied. The Venice Carnival would last six months. Seriously? And all of this under the auspices of being good at everything arty. But then they got wind of Napoleon being out on a rampage to conquer the world. And by the time he got to Venice, they just politely handed it over. Who feels like fighting if you are still hung over from yesterday’s party, anyway? Well, it seems like Napoleon also fairly quickly got tired of getting lost in Venice, not to mention climbing up and down the stairs of the many bridges, so swopped Venice for a much flatter Belgium.

Sure, some details have been omitted, or maybe even slightly altered – you can perhaps blame the Spritz, but we did enjoy the tour, and we loved the lunch that followed (we could sit, after all!)

The rest of the afternoon was spent in a state of relaxation. We’re on leave, not? We did at least expend some effort for an early evening expedition for some leather handbags. And just to be sure that the men would tolerate our shopping efforts, we stopped by a wine shop first. Fascinating! In one corner of the shop is a basket with empty one liter water bottles. Behind the counter is a row of very large wine bottles.  Locals come and buy wine here for around 2 Euro per liter, provided to them in one of the empty water bottles. Bargain!

Tomorrow we leave Venice with sore feet, stiff muscles, and good memories. But more fun awaits.

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