Venice is one of our favorite cities in the Mediterranean if not the most favorite. This city has its own unique charm with the canals and gondolas along with Murano’s world famous glass factories. The shops and restaurants around the city are second to none in the Mediterranean. It also has a unique history of how it was originally created and grew into its own republic to an entity of Napoleon’s empire to eventually part of Italy. We arrived in the city in the early afternoon on our ship cruising up the Guidecca Canal passing St Mark’s Square and getting a wonderful view of the city from our high vantage point on deck 18 of our cruise ship. It is truly the best port to enter in a cruise ship with all the scenery and the ship playing the most famous Italian songs! This was our only stop where we had two days to enjoy the city. We took full advantage of this by spending over 10 hours roaming the city on the first day (coming back to the ship after 11PM) and spending over 12 hours the second day getting back to the ship just minutes before final boarding time (being the last 2 passengers on board the ship prior to our departure sailing).
We went on two free walking tours during our stay where all you pay is a tip if you are happy with the tour. The first tour was a 3 hour walk through the San Polo and San Marco regions of Venice. The second tour was a 4 hour tour of the Ghetto and Castello regions. There are 6 mainland regions of Venice along with 3 outlying islands which make up the city. If you look at the symbol on the bow of a Gondola (see picture) you will see bars that extend from this bow feature that represent these regions and some carvings between the bars that represents the islands. The top of this symbol represents the opening of the Grand Canal. As we walked through these two regions we learned many interesting facts about Venice and the local areas. One of the reasons we enjoyed these tours was because the talk was not just about dates, buildings, people and history which can tend to get very boring after a while. We learned about the Venetian wells that were created over 100 years ago to collect rain water and make it available to the people twice a day for use. The wells were owned by wealthy businessman who sold the water to the people for profits. There were once over a thousand wells around the city but today only a few hundred remain and are all sealed shut. We were also told about the flooding issues that Venice has which is made worse due to the fact that the city has slowly sunken over the years from when it was first created by the Romans. The high tide heights can be higher or lower due to the moon position and the western African winds. There are 9 months of potentially high tides which are worse during the winter months. Tides can rise up to 3 feet and it is a common occurrence for the Venetian people. Because of the tides they were boots of varying lengths (depending of the flooding height) and each of the buildings first floors use partitions (see picture) to prevent water intrusion into the rooms. Venetian shoppers will just step over these partitions, buy want they want from a store, and then step back over the partition back into the flooded streets (as just a normal way of life in Venice). Because tourists weren’t prepared for flooding streets and had problems getting their luggage to the hotels from the train and bus stations, the city has put tables in all of the plazas to be placed in a manner to allow tourists to drag their luggage on top of the tables to prevent their luggage from getting wet. This is strange but creative thinking to solve one of the city’s problems. We also learned about the city’s festival that is held once a year in February for two weeks and is very similar to Mardi Gras. There are no parades but everyone wears masks during the festival. The origination of the festival dates back to the middle ages when the ruling class was trying to regain its relationship with the poor people after alienating them during the plague when the rich shut their doors preventing poor and sick people from entering their homes in order to protect themselves from the disease. The festival was created to provide two weeks out of the year when everyone wore masks so that the poor and rich were treated equally. Venetian masks also have another very interesting background. The masks with the large noses were originally worn by doctors. The length of the nose was used to prevent doctors from getting too close to patients with the plague. The large noses also contained various herbs to provide an aroma that was thought to filter out the diseased air. The doctors also used sticks to touch and move the patients to prevent touching them. I don’t think too many patients today would be very happy if modern doctors acted in this way or maybe in a few hundred years people will be looking back at our doctors dressed in Hazmat suits in a similar way and shaking their heads. Who knows? There were so many interesting things we learned about Venice during these two walking tours but we also saw some very interesting sights and learned more historical information on some of the buildings and plazas. We took hundreds of pictures as we walked through some of these areas that were well off the beaten path for most tourists.
We went on two free walking tours during our stay where all you pay is a tip if you are happy with the tour. The first tour was a 3 hour walk through the San Polo and San Marco regions of Venice. The second tour was a 4 hour tour of the Ghetto and Castello regions. There are 6 mainland regions of Venice along with 3 outlying islands which make up the city. If you look at the symbol on the bow of a Gondola (see picture) you will see bars that extend from this bow feature that represent these regions and some carvings between the bars that represents the islands. The top of this symbol represents the opening of the Grand Canal. As we walked through these two regions we learned many interesting facts about Venice and the local areas. One of the reasons we enjoyed these tours was because the talk was not just about dates, buildings, people and history which can tend to get very boring after a while. We learned about the Venetian wells that were created over 100 years ago to collect rain water and make it available to the people twice a day for use. The wells were owned by wealthy businessman who sold the water to the people for profits. There were once over a thousand wells around the city but today only a few hundred remain and are all sealed shut. We were also told about the flooding issues that Venice has which is made worse due to the fact that the city has slowly sunken over the years from when it was first created by the Romans. The high tide heights can be higher or lower due to the moon position and the western African winds. There are 9 months of potentially high tides which are worse during the winter months. Tides can rise up to 3 feet and it is a common occurrence for the Venetian people. Because of the tides they were boots of varying lengths (depending of the flooding height) and each of the buildings first floors use partitions (see picture) to prevent water intrusion into the rooms. Venetian shoppers will just step over these partitions, buy want they want from a store, and then step back over the partition back into the flooded streets (as just a normal way of life in Venice). Because tourists weren’t prepared for flooding streets and had problems getting their luggage to the hotels from the train and bus stations, the city has put tables in all of the plazas to be placed in a manner to allow tourists to drag their luggage on top of the tables to prevent their luggage from getting wet. This is strange but creative thinking to solve one of the city’s problems. We also learned about the city’s festival that is held once a year in February for two weeks and is very similar to Mardi Gras. There are no parades but everyone wears masks during the festival. The origination of the festival dates back to the middle ages when the ruling class was trying to regain its relationship with the poor people after alienating them during the plague when the rich shut their doors preventing poor and sick people from entering their homes in order to protect themselves from the disease. The festival was created to provide two weeks out of the year when everyone wore masks so that the poor and rich were treated equally. Venetian masks also have another very interesting background. The masks with the large noses were originally worn by doctors. The length of the nose was used to prevent doctors from getting too close to patients with the plague. The large noses also contained various herbs to provide an aroma that was thought to filter out the diseased air. The doctors also used sticks to touch and move the patients to prevent touching them. I don’t think too many patients today would be very happy if modern doctors acted in this way or maybe in a few hundred years people will be looking back at our doctors dressed in Hazmat suits in a similar way and shaking their heads. Who knows? There were so many interesting things we learned about Venice during these two walking tours but we also saw some very interesting sights and learned more historical information on some of the buildings and plazas. We took hundreds of pictures as we walked through some of these areas that were well off the beaten path for most tourists.
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