Veni, Vidi, Venice...I came, I saw, I took a gondola ride.

After another early morning wake-up, I took the train to Venice. The hostel was extremely convenient to the train station, so I was ready to start exploring soon after arriving. Venice is Amsterdam meets Florence, with all the fun of the Dutch canals and all the beauty of the narrow Italian streets. For a place like this, it is easy to get lost, but then again, that is part of the whole point as any guide here would suggest. I had maps downloaded into the GPS, so fortunately I could easily find my way to waypoints with turn-by-turn directions on even the pedestrian streets whenever I was able to get an actual signal in the urban canyons between the buildings. I spent a couple of hours just wandering, checking out shops, and getting completely lost. It was wonderful and felt like I was playing a game of hide and seek between me and myself. When I booked the trip in October I already planned to try to recreate a particular shot that a once close friend of mine had created a long time ago; only I didn't know where it was taken. That picture had a beautiful church in the background with a well situated gondola, though it was marred in composition by another gondola's bow breaking the frame. I walked the whole waterfront and was excited to finally see the church across the water, only to find the spot I thought it was ended up being on the wrong side of the Grand Canal. Even though the other side of the river is just a few hundred meters away, it can take a long detour to reach the other side. There are only two main bridges that cross the Grand Canal, however besides the vaporetto, the Grand Canal water bus that zig zags the main waterway. This is public transportation at it's finest, without any pesky rules of the road. They know and you know they are the biggest thing on the water, so nobody is unaware of their position in life. These things pretty much crash in and tear out of the stops with much abandon. During my visit to Venice I felt like a hobo hopping on and off old train cars in motion whenever I was on the vaporettos.

There is a local secret of which few seem to be aware outside of the area residents. In several strategic points there are gondola stations called traghettos that for only a half euro will take you directly across to the other side. If one doesn't want to pay the €80-100 euro, minimum, price for a more traditional ride, these offer great values so one may truthfully say they rode a gondola in Venice! Apparently by law, designed so the nobles of old wouldn't constantly be pimping their gondola ride by excessive colors as a way of bragging, all gondolas must be painted black. There area about 400 licensed gondoliers in Venice with rights only passing on to family when one passes on. Anyway, I made my way to the bay once again in my mission to find the correct site. Of course once I got to the right spot it was obvious, but recreating shots can sometimes be hit and miss to get the angle right. I've read stories of people trying to recreate Ansel Adams shots having extreme difficulty finding the right spot where one might think it would be easy. I stood there for at least 85 minutes waiting for just the right shot. Yeah, for some reason it was that important to me. There was a lot of transecting going on by tons of boat and gondola traffic whenever I got close that just messed it up. I actually whooped when I thought I got it and noticed, though I no longer have access to the original inspirational shot, that by sheer chance, I seem to even have captured the same operator.

After getting the shot I listened to the Rick Steves audio guide of Venice and St. Marks Square. Apparently the Ponte dei Sospiri, Bridge of Sighs, was given the name by Lord Byron. The name came from the suggestion that prisoners would sigh at their final view of beautiful Venice out the window before being taken down to their cells. In reality, the days of inquisitions and summary executions were over by the time the bridge was built, and the cells under the palace roof were occupied mostly by small-time criminals. I was disappointed in seeing the famous 'Bridge of Sighs' pretty much covered by an advertisement, but eventually noticed it was just to cover scaffolding that was presumably renovating the buildings. In giving the name, Lord Byron wrote, “I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; / A palace and a prison on each hand.” After taking the wrong water bus, I should learn to consult transportation maps more often, that went all the way over to Lido (though a nice ride anyway) I finally made it back to the hostel after a 90 minute long, but scenic, detour late in the evening. Venice definitely is one of the most scenic places I've ever visited. It was a complete haven of photographs just waiting to be turned into desktop wallpaper.

Bridge of Sighs

Italian men are sexy.