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Venice is amazing! For those of you who have been there, this blog might seem like nothing new. But for me, all I ever knew about Venice was that it was a city of canals and gondolas. It is; but the implications of this result in a fascinating city. Unique in the way it functions.
The first thing you need to know is the city of Venice stands on a collection of small islands off the mainland peninsula of Italy. It is connected to the mainland by a train and car bridge (neither of which are permitted to actually enter the city), and is protected in the Laguna (lagoon) by a long narrow island called Lido that shelters the metropolis from the wild weather of the Adriatic Sea. What you're left with is a series of islands separated by canals and segregated by a spider-web network of smaller (1-2 metre wide) canalleys (our witty amalgamation of canals and alleys). Bridges are sparsely and randomly dotted around the city, and give some capacity to traverse the maze of pedestrian pathways.
It took us a little while to realise the way this unique geography affects the day to day life of Venetians. There are no roads: only the maze of pedestrian walkways. How do people get from one island to another? How do restaurants get their daily deliveries of fresh produce, or locals get their bags of groceries back home from the supermarket? How do garbos pick up the waste and rubbish generated on a daily basis, or the paramedics rush a patient to hospital? A simple answer to all: by boat.
Venice relies entirely on boats. It may seem obvious, byt it fascinated me! In the absence of roads, the locals have developed a way of life entirely reliant on being "boat people" (probably a misleading appropriation of the thinly-veiled racial slur, but I digress). We saw a variety of custom-built boats during our time there: garbage collection boats, ambulances, even cranes! Goldoliers spent their early mornings slowly working their way through the canals and delivering produce to local shops and restaurants. Peak hour traffic jams at 5pm on the canal in front of St Mark's Square. A couple pulled their tinny up to a private jetty in a suburban canalley and carted their groceries inside. It's this resultant way of life that fascinated me so much, and made me realise how very unique Venice is.
The random network of canalleys and pathways also give the effect of complete isolation contrasted with the occasional sightings of tourist masses. If you arrive at the Santa Lucia train station at any time of the day (or St. Mark's Square, or the Rialto Bridge, or any of a dozen other famous sights around the city), you will be engulfed by a tidal wave of touristy madness. Take a left and a right down any nearby alley and you'll find yourself surrounded by silence. A dead-end path leads only to a canal running perpendicular and blocking your path. A chef strolls purposefully out the back door of his restaurant, off on some errand. The peeling paint from countless floods reveal a rustic pattern of red bricks underneath.
I must admit I was surprised by how much I enjoyed our visit to Venice. It's a city unique in so many ways. I've really only scraped the surface here; the rest you'll have to take a left and a right down a canalley and discover for yourself.
P.S. We need to thank Kirk, Lauren and Noah for their contribution to the Suitcase of Dreams; without which, we would've been swimming between the islands.
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