After yesterday things just had to get better and they did. St. Mark' s Square (SMS) is virtually empty at 8 o'clock in the morning except for the street cleaners and delivery men. I found it enthralling to see how the infrastructure in Venice works without lorries and delivery vans, there are many and various custom made hand trucks to deliver stuff and take away the dirty linen etc which is all delivered to the nearest point on the canal by a slightly wider version of a British narrow boat . The refuse is even more interesting, all the rubbish is collected in large mesh, wheeled containers and taken to the bin-barge which picks up the container with a crane, hoists it over the barge and lowers it into the hold where it automatically empties itself. I know what you are thinking "what a spotter"
Anyway after doing a recce to find the Realto bridge ( quite easy when you follow the signs ) I went down to the Maritime Museum well worth a couple of hours if you are a boatie like me. I had another attempt to get lost and feeling like a rest I jumped on the nearest vaporetto which after a call at the Lido dropped me at Punta Sabbioni, a great place for a lunch stop and about a third of Venice prices. I have overheard tourists complain about waiting for the vaporetto they want but it is best to just jump on the first one that arrives, today I started at SMS then as above, the next vaporetto dropped me at Burano and after walking to Mazzorbo, I caught a lift to Forte Nove and onwards to the Grand Canal and meandered back to my hotel on foot a total of nine and a half hours of adventure.
Tonight I have been to watch Italian opera sung in Italian by Italians, La Traviata performed at the Scuola Grande di San Teodoro, it was superb.
More soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment