A fortnight ago, we traveled to Venice in celebration of Olie's birthday. The city featured highly on both of our top 10 cities list and ideally we would have loved to have been there during the festivities of Carnival; but hotel and flight prices convinced us to defer the trip to later in the year. Coincidentally, the weekend we booked in turned out to be timed with another famous Venetian festival - Festa del Redentore, so we ended up paying 'festive' prices for our holiday accommodation but there was a lot of atmosphere in town with hundreds of tourist and locals joining into the celebrations.
Arriving in Venice
We arrived to Venice on Friday night, leaving London Gatwick straight after work and flying Easyjet to the Marco Polo airport located on the mainland side of the lagoon. We landed close to 10:30pm and after the water-bus ride that seemed to last for ages, we arrived at St Mark's Square (Piazza San Marco) close to midnight.
Traced route of our travels in Venice
Best Western Hotel Ala
The esplanade was full of tourists walking near the Doge's Palace and we were tempted with getting a late night gelato. However, we decided that checking in to our hotel was more important, and we walked down the side lane-ways and across a few bridges to the Best Western Hotel Ala, our accommodation for the next 2 days.
Our room was located next to one of the minor canals, with the sounds of gondolas travelling through waking us up one morning. The hotel staff spoke English and was decorated by many examples of Venetian armoury.
Suit of armour in the hotel reception
Shield and medieval weapons
Beware the mosquitoes
On the weekend that we visited, we were lucky with the weather with clear skies and temperature sitting around the mid 30 degrees Celsius. And despite warnings from friends that had traveled to Venice during summer, the canals did not have the expected raw sewer stagnant water smell. But that said, the canals are a haven for mosquitoes and we would recommend that insect spray is a must-have accessory for future travelers.
Gondolas in the Grand Canal
Famous Venetian Carnival masks
Church with its own gondola stop
Statues from a church near our hotel
Hanging out on one of the bridges overlooking the canal
One of Venice's many bridges
Rialto Bridge
Saturday morning, we woke up early and enjoyed the hotel's breakfast buffet and explored the local area, taking photos of the nearby churches and bridges before making our way to the fish market near the picturesque Rialto Bridge.
Rialto Bridge
Fish Market
The fish market was filled with locals picking up their seafood purchases, including trays of squid (covered in black ink), fresh anchovies and swordfish steaks and one large trophy head. Walking around the stalls made us regret that we didn't book a serviced apartment so we can cook some of the produce for lunch.
Swordfish head
Squid and ink
Murano
To distract ourselves, we took the canal ferry (vaporetti) down the Grand Canal, where the combination of warm air and the gentle movement of the waves made us quite sleepy. Arriving back at Piazza San Marco, we found the direct ferry to the glass making island of Murano, located to the north-east of the main island of Venice.
Murano glasswork
Venetian glass is famous for colour and patterns
The journey to Murano took about 20 minutes, where we arrived in the main canal area and Mei ventured into the different shops to find a souvenir venetian glass necklace, whilst Olie took photos of different glass sculptures that were in the main street.
Enjoying the sunshine on the island of Murano
Main canal, Murano
Glass factory, Murano
Glass sculptures
Beautiful hand-blown glass art
Balla Vecchia Pescheria
Lunch was eaten at a Balla Vecchia Pescheria, a small restaurant that served traditional venetian food that came with good reviews from Tripadvisor. Whilst the prices were high - tourist mark-up of 12 euro for 2 grilled scallops, the black squid ink pasta was a highlight in taste and the way it stained the table cloth and Mei's teeth for most of the afternoon.
Squid ink pasta
Seafood pasta
Island of Giudecca
We left the island soon after and took the ferry back towards central Venice, which turned out to be the scenic route taking about an hour to arrive near the island of Giudecca. We took a walk on the esplanade, buying some cheap beer and soft-drink from the supermarket and spotting the fireworks barges along the canal, which helped us to select the best viewing spot for the night's activities.
Yachts lined up on the island of Giudecca
Firework barges
Sights of Venice
We caught the ferry back to our hotel and noticed a man fishing off the side of the pier for lagoon fish using chunks of bread - he was quite successful, netting in about 1 fish every 3 minutes. From the fishing show, we headed back to the hotel for a bit of relaxation before seeking out a dinner spot in the early evening.
Gondoliers ducking down to avoid hitting the bridges
On the bridge near the Arsenal area
Video of tourist sights in Venice:
Dinner at San Polo
After walking around the San Polo area, reading restaurant menus we settled on a small restaurant La Porta D'Acqua that was ranked No.5 of all restaurants in Venice. The home-made pasta with seafood was a winner and the waiters appeared to know all the locals, which was a good sign for the quality of the food.
Glass cups tinted with colour that is only visible when filled with sparkling water
Crab pasta
Fried anchovies
Restaurants in the San Polo area
Grand Canal at dusk
Festa del Redentore
Festa del Redentore was first celebrated as a feast in the 1500's when the Doge wanted to give thanks for Venice surviving the Black Plague (although 50,000 were killed) and a church, the Il Redentore was built on the island of Giudecca. The two features of the festival are an extensive fireworks show and an armada of small boats that fill the canals and form an artificial bridge between the Venetian area of Dorsoduro and Giudecca.
From our dinner restaurant we walked down to the Accademia Bridge, the link to the Dorsoduro where we could see a crowd of locals building up on the banks of the canal facing the firework barges. The atmosphere was electric with locals setting up picnic blankets and private gondolas side by side enjoying the festival atmosphere.
Getting ready for the fireworks
We found a small spot along the wall and watched the locals jump across the boats to the bank for toilet stops. When the fireworks started, we were deafened by the sound, amazed by the colour and imagination of the different patterns and dazzled by 30 minutes of non-stop entertainment.
Fireworks
Video of the fireworks display
After the finale, a flotilla of small boats sped through the canal in a way that would have put any autobahn to shame with no lanes, it was a free-for-all but amazingly we didn't see any collisions.
St Mark's Square
The next day, we took more photos of the canals before visiting St Mark's Square and the Doge's Palace - key landmarks of Venice.
The tourists and pigeons of St Mark's Square
The tower
Basilica of St Mark
The clock at St Mark's Square
Doge's Palace
The Palace was richly decorated with artwork and murals by the Venetian masters - Titian and Paolo Veronese. The audio guide explained the history of the palace and the role of the Doge, more of a figure head than a person that held power. Our favourite room contained maps and globes that were drawn and dated from the age of the great explorers including Marco Polo - Australia being absent however the Venetians had very detailed knowledge of Scandinavia and the Far East.
View from the balcony at the Doge's Palace
St Mark Lion and seagull
On of the monuments on top of the columns
Statue and seagull
The Giant's Staircase
The Golden Staircase
Looking at the canal from inside the Bridge of Sighs
Looking out of the Bridge of Sighs
Arsenal
The queue outside the Basilica of St Mark funnelled all the way to the canal, which convinced us that we should give it a miss and instead we went towards the east-side of the city to the Arsenal area, the old military fort that once contained the famous shipyards.
The entrance to Arsenal
Bridge of Sighs
We lunched at a place by the canal where we ate pizza and top quality gelati. From there, we headed back towards the hotel, passing by the famous Bridge of Sighs where prisoners walked from the judiciary to their cells.
Restaurant for lunch
Gelati
Bridge of Sighs
Magic of Canaletto
Back to the hotel, we picked up our bags and took a ferry back to the airport and had a final viewing of the Venetian city-line that resembled the Canaletto painting - The Molo (Monument) and the Piazzetta San Marco.
Olie's photo from July, 2012
Canaletto's painting from the 1730's of Venice, displayed in the Louvre, Paris
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