A Birthday in Venice

We celebrated my birthday in December with a trip to Venice. This was our second time in Venice. We originally visited in 1988 during a 10-month bicycle trip, which included 3-1/2 months pedaling from Rome to Dublin. In the 22 years since we first visited Venice, we've changed a great deal. (There's nothing like a birthday to remind you how much you've changed.) Venice, on the other hand, is exactly the same. And that is the beauty of Venice: it is a city frozen in time. The time was around the 13th Century when Venice was the major trading center in Europe for goods and crusaders coming in from and departing for the East. The thriving trade center became a center of banking, manufacturing, and the arts. Wealthy citizens built splendid palaces along the canals and subsidized great works of art. But Venice's preeminence as an international trade center declined in the 15th Century after Magellan found a sea route to the East, shifting Europe's center of trade from Venice to Lisbon and other European cities that were prepared to set sail. Venice, with it's fleet of oared boats, slid into obscurity, preserved in its lovely, slightly decayed medieval-renaissance state.

From our original visit, we both had fond memories of Venice. I loved getting lost in the maze of little alleyways, and Jim loved that the city is without automobiles. (I find it funny that a guy who owns five vehicles loves car-free zones.) You can drive to Venice from the mainland on a long causeway, but then you have to park at one of the few outrageously expensive garages. (Cheaper alternatives are on the mainland and along the causeway, but we were only in Venice three nights so we opted for convenience.) From the parking garage, we rolled and carried our luggage to the vaporetto station, where we picked up the public boat that would get us, our dogs, and luggage closer to our hotel near St. Mark's Square. Bruno carried his own backpack, which made him a big hit on the vaporetto. After disembarking, we wandered around looking for the right alleyway to proceed down, but when we started retracing our steps, Jim pulled out the GPS and took us directly to the Hotel Locanda Canal. Venice is great for walking, but not with suitcases. A GPS is handy.

Venice has some fantastic sights to see, including the Doge's Palace, St. Mark's Basilica and Square, and the Frari church, but I didn't feel the desire that I feel in Florence to visit sights. Venice makes me want to walk and walk and walk, and when I'm tired of walking, it makes me want to eat. I did visit St. Mark's Basilica on my birthday, admiring the golden, stone-studded mosaics covering the ceiling, studying the detail in the Paolo d'Oro altarpiece, and marveling at the waves created in the black and white mosaic floor from the settling of the pilings under the weight of the cathedral. Jim and I also spent a day visiting half a dozen churches around the city, the best of which was the Frari for the masterpieces it contains. They say that Venice has an amazing café culture, but it was too cold when we were there for it to be in full swing. The cafes were full inside, but outside tables and chairs were empty in the near freezing temperatures. The only thing to do was to walk to stay warm and dip into a café or restaurant at meal time for some local cuisine. On my birthday, we dipped into Osteria al Mascaron, snagged the last table, and enjoyed their seafood antipasto, pasta, and house white wine.

Walking the streets of Venice is like hiking the canyons of the American Southwest. The footpaths are narrow and are hemmed in by buildings rising 30-feet overhead, as though the watery canals had carved out the facades of these buildings over time. These urban canyons angle this way and that, slowly revealing the path forward. Little canyons merge to form bigger canyons, and bigger canyons divide into many narrower canyons. Venice begs you to come to the next bend in the canyon and peak around the corner for a visual treat. It hardly ever disappoints.

I've posted more pictures of Venice and created a short video highlighting some different forms of Venetian transportation.