I'll touch briefly on Francesco and my morning hilarities over what was probably the most awful breakfast I've ever been served on an airplane....... Or maybe the most awful ever, anywhere.....
I think it was supposed to be a version of an egg mcmuffin. It was soggy and it was tasteless. I ate one tiny nibble, and Francesco, with dramatic shock and horror, ate a couple of big bites, theatrically regretting each of them.............. (Delta ... really? Yuck. How embarrassing, to serve something so icky to Italians, who have such delicious cuisines!)
Approaching Venice.
Moments later, under the cloud cover. I'm glad I got a shot that shows the solid ground, and the lagoon on which Venice was built (on wooden pilings, driven into the swampy lagoon).
Of course no place with more than one or two people can be all romance and green fields....
The plane landed, and Francesco and I parted amicably. I surely wish him well. A nice guy, and a very fun traveling companion.
One more thought before we de-plane. Italian men are incredibly attentive to women who may need help. I was essentially never allowed to put my luggage in an overhead rack if there was an Italian around. Two men came to help me put my suitcase up, on that outbound flight (not Francesco, he arrived on the scene after it was already up), and when I was ready to leave the plane, I looked up, and the man in the row behind me asked "is it the blue one?" and got it down for me. On a train once, a young (30s?) man came rushing to help me, as he saw me start to put that suitcase up.
I can do it, but won't refuse an offer of help.......... This eagerness to help was different from in the USA or in France; offers of help are rare in either place.
Grazie mille, Italiani!
We went through customs in a flash (they did stamp our passports, in contrast to the French in 2010), and we found a machine that would sell us tickets to the boat that would take us from the airport to a stop near our apartment. It's only occurring to me now, alas, that I should have taken pics of ticket machines. We used them many times, for different modes of transportation. They offer you a choice of languages, and are not hard to use. You can use a credit card, if you are European and have a microchip in your card (rather than just a magnetic strip, as in most cards in the USA -- this is another arena in which ONE standard would be preferable to more than one!). Our credit cards lacked chips, so we used cash.
This canal leads from the airport to the lagoon, which we will cross to reach Venice.
Looking back at the spray from the boat.
Our first glimpse of Venice!
Getting closer.....
This is the kind of boat we were riding in.
Water-side church, with waves.
Look how close the water level is to those doorways! The one on the right appears to have a water-keeper-outer in place at the bottom (about which, more later).
Our first view of St. Mark's campanile (with green top).
Venice. Water, churches, construction/reconstruction, boats and more boats.
This pic was blurry even before I cropped it tight, but I wanted to give you a view of the pilings boats might attach to.
Because I wanted to show you the textures of a brand new set of pilings.
Very few buildings in Venice look new. I want to see the inside of this one......
This is that same building -- you can just make out the brick circle, behind the staircase.
Note also the ambulance is a boat.
There is no motorized traffic on pavement in Venice. There are boats, and there are hand-carts, and there are feet. We saw a few very little kids on bikes or scooters, but no adults on bikes. Given that you usually don't walk very far before you have to climb stairs up a bridge over a canal, Venice is very difficult for anyone who has to move anything more than their own self. Strollers, granny carts, bikes ... difficult. I did see a few people in wheelchairs, but I can't imagine they could cross any bridges. I saw one ramp, over one bridge. All the rest were stairs, only.
Everything is moved as far as possible by boat, and then goods move by hand cart.
Garbage is picked up by a boat (and men with carts, fetching bags of garbage back to the boat). Laundry is delivered to hotels by boats (and men with carts). Food is delivered to hotels and stores and markets by boat (and men with carts). Our neighborhood fruit/veg market was a boat, though it seemed to be parked in one spot and the produce brought to it, rather than leaving to go get it.
Towers and more towers.
Getting close to our stop, Arsenale.
We will visit this park, later today. At this point we had no idea that trees and parks are incredibly rare, in Venice.
We had no idea this was "our" canal, nor that the orange building, center, left, held our apartment.
We were a bit early to meet the person who would introduce us to our apartment.
There's San Marco's campanile again.
Note it is raining. This will, alas, be a consistent theme of our time in Venice. These people are wearing winter coats. It was in the 40s (F).
Zooming in -- those are San Marco's domes, above the buildings.
Our contact arrived a bit early, and showed us to our apartment, which was very close to this spot. I'll show you our apartment later......
In order to facilitate chronological traversal of these posts, here is a link to the next post.
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