VENICE

Music. All the time.
Curling through the open window during afternoon nap, soaring up from the tenors in the gondolas going by; violins dueling at night in Piazza San Marco, buskers playing afternoon jazz in campo Margareta, and a dozen different languages trilling through the air at the Rialto bridge...

Bells. Bells at 7am to wake you up, bells at midnight to tell you to go to bed. Bells to announce the beginning of mass and bells to toll the hour.

It was hot, it was sunny, it was September. Rooms were cheap(ish), and you could buy salami and buns and cheese and a jug of wine at the local grocery store, standing in line behind little old lady Venetians buying two eggs and kitty litter. "What impact am I having on her life?" you wonder, as you look at the lineup of tourists in front of her, piling their baskets with last of the staples that used to be for her.

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A room for two at the Riva costs $190. Canadian per night.

Right in the heart of Venice, a block and a half from Piazza San Marco, where the pigeons amass in thousands, waiting for you to buy them some seeds ( but don't let them sit on you, ick.) Where the Lion of Venice stands bold upon his pillar looking over the Adriatic sea. Where the gondolas bob waiting, where you'll see men and machines working hard to raise the level of the walkway in this first to flood area.


The songs
of the gondoliers
waft in through
the windows...


The buildings are being worked on all the time....
This is a drained canal, where the workers have placed pieces of green hose at intervals into the fragile wall. They will then pump cement into the wall through the hoses to firm up the building for a while longer. When they are done they will fill the canal again to the level of the step on the right. Note the bars across the arched doorway and the black bolt on the wall at the upper left of the same. That bolt runs right through the floor of the building to the other side to help prevent sagging.

City cleaners, on the way home, in their distinctive uniforms of red and green. They are especially visible in the early morning hours.

Get your maps right there in Venice, there are maps of the vaporetto routes as well as of the city herself.
The vaporettos are the boat busses that carry you along the canals for a reasonable cost.