Venice, Italy

There is no good food in Venice. (This is a sad fact. It seems that the local restaurateurs prize quantity far above quality, since the tourist trade makes repeat business unlikely. You have been warned, as we were. It doesn't help.)

Other than the food, though, Venice is a wonderment. It is completely free of motorized land vehicles. Unlike everywhere else in Italy, there are no scooters to dodge! The city is a maze of canals and bridges, and rather than the north-south-east-west variety, the street signs give directions toward either the Piazza San Marco or the Rialto bridge.

Everywhere you look there are boats. While waiting for the morning vaporetto (water bus), sightseeing is still possible as the scenery comes to you and slowly parades by. We watched the morning commute, businessmen and women in suits, carrying briefcases, stepping aboard gondolas for the short ride across the canal in the absence of a bridge. We also saw a variety of boats to remind us that Venice is a living city, not just a tourist showplace; we saw garbage boats, a boat carrying gravel for a construction project, police boats, even a freezer-boat delivering gelati.

Just to stand still and watch Venice go by is a treat, but here, too, there are museums and sights to see. The Accademia dell'Arte was presenting an exhibit of drawings by DaVinci, and we saw some of his original works and his mirror-image journals. The rest of the Accademia has displays of Venetian art from the 14th to 18th centuries. From there, on to the Palazzo Ducale, the private residence of the Venetian Doges of centuries past, and the primary municipal building of the Venetian Republic. Inside, we saw the royal chambers and offices, including a room of maps and globes showing the extent of Venetian influence during its reign as the trading capital of the world. From there, we went to see how the "other half" lived, across the Bridge of Sighs and into the dank, dark dungeons.

Later, we visited Saint Mark's Basilica, and were able to join a guided tour in English. The guide, a local Venetian volunteer, interpreted the church's mosaics (Biblical scenes from Genesis to the Crucifixion) and showed us some of the more interesting architectural features of the building. We were also led to the Pala d'Oro, an altar screen covered in jewels and gold. A short walk across the Piazza (and then lots of hunting for the door) brought us to the Museo Correr, which is sort of half history museum, half art museum. The historical displays were very interesting and answered many of our questions about Venice, but the art was not of the caliber we'd seen the day before at the Accademia.

Of course, we eventually ended up in a gondola, touring down the Grand Canal and into some smaller side canals. It was absolutely fascinating to see Venice in such detail. We got to see close up how the combination of rising water levels and settling foundations is changing Venice. Most homes have canal access via doors that were intended to remain above water but which are now partially submerged. Some of the buildings show considerable wear at the corners from having been bumped by canal boats for centuries. The preservation of Venice must be extremely difficult.

Our last stop in Venice (this trip; we'll be back) was the Campanile San Marco. The bell tower is the highest point in Venice and offers a panoramic view of the city. Venice is so densely packed that it is difficult to discern individual canals, and the view showed us a city of few right angles and no straight lines.

Back to the subject of food: we had two meals in Venice that merit special mention. The first was at a restaurant called Iguana, purportedly the only Mexican food served for hundreds of miles. If what they serve passes for Mexican food around here, it's no wonder that it hasn't caught on. The other meal was at a canalside seafood restaurant, apparently a local hangout. This is always a good sign, so I ordered the specialty of the house, seppia alla Veneziana, or squid in its ink served with polenta. It was unspeakably foul. I managed, as a member in good standing of the clean plate club, to choke the whole thing down, but I did notice that the Japanese businessmen at the next table sent theirs back. I do not know if it is intended to taste the way it did or if there was a tragic mistake in the kitchen, and I do not intend to find out. Yuck!

We left Venice via an overnight train. This time we shared a sleeping compartment in second class with two other people, all on our way to Munich.