Venice in 3 days
Broo...@aol.com
Don’t go anywhere without a great---by which I mean a GREAT---map. You’ll
want the largest, most detailed map you can get your hands on, which, in
my opinion, is the one put out by Studio F.M.B. Bologna. It’s not
available in the USA, but can be found in Italian bookstores. You should
know that there are NO maps of Venice detailed enough to fully chart the
complexities of the city. To further complicate matters, street names
often repeat themselves in the different sestiere (sections) of the city,
and the Venetians like to change the spelling of street names, sometimes
on street signs within fifty yards of each other. Same street, mind you,
different spelling! Ultimately, you may find these (and countless other
eccentricities) among Venice’s most lovable traits.
TIP: A tiny, four-inch flashlight (try a travel or camping supply store)
can make map-reading at night lot easier, especially if you’ve chosen a
restaurant in some far-flung corner of the city.
The entire city is an unparalleled spectacle. Any good guidebook will
help you decide how to proceed with the parade of four-star attractions.
Since you couldn’t possibly see them all in ten trips to the city, make
no attempt to see them in one. Pick a handful and spread them out over
your stay, leaving yourself a good chunk of unstructured time in which to
drift aimlessly, sit in cafes, read, listen to a Walkman, or write
postcards. Venice is no place to be grim and determined about
sightseeing.
Have you ever traveled with a Walkman? There are few things lovelier than
strolling at dusk to the Punta della Dogana at the tip of Dorsoduro and
listening to Mozart with the entire panorama of the lagoon, the Piazza San
Marco, and the Grand Canal spread out before you.
One of those touristy activities that shouldn’t be missed is a trip to
the top of the Campanile in the Piazza San Marco. Check its opening hours
and do it first thing in the morning before the hoards of day-trippers
arrive. The view of the city (and the distant Alps, if the weather is
clear) is spectacular. An odd thing that you will notice immediately is
that not one of Venice’s two hundred canals is visible from that
perspective.
The Basilica of San Marco is staggering, outside and in. You might want
to postpone touring the Doge’s Palace, however, until your next trip.
Italy has no shortage of large, pompous interiors, and your limited time
in Venice could be more interestingly spent leafing through sheaves of
hand-marbled paper, walking the lonely back streets of an untouristed
neighborhood, or ducking into a quiet little church, such as Santa Maria
dei Miracoli----a Renaissance gem.
Everyone has favorite campi, which are the large open spaces in every
neighborhood in which markets set up their stalls, kids play ball, and
people come to eat, socialize, or shop. Every campo has a distinct
personality. They are great places to sit with an expresso, pizza, or a
glass of wine and observe the life of the city.
Two favorites of mine are the Campo dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo and the
sprawling, good-hearted Campo di Santa Maria Formosa. (Formosa, as nearly
as it can be translated, means "comely".....such an Italian way of
describing a saint!)
The Scala Contarini del Bovolo is only an exterior staircase, albeit a
stunning one. It stars in hundreds of postcards but, being somewhat
tricky to find, is missed by most tourists. If you happen to be in the
neighborhood, it’s worth a gander. It is in an alleyway off the Campo
Manin.
There may be a morning in Venice when you want to take in enough culture
to feel virtuous and absolve yourself of further responsibilities towards
culture ‘til after lunch. Let me recommend a tiny, jewel-box of a museum
that may take you all of twenty minutes to see in its entirety. It is the
Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, and the reason to see it is for
the famous, storybook-like cycle of Carpaccios on the first floor. The
paintings and their setting are sweet and magical, and have the advantage
of being off the tourist beat. There have rarely been more than half a
dozen people there any time I’ve visited. In a city that has always been
queer for animals both real and mythical, the little white terrier in the
painting of Saint Augustine In His Study is one of the most beloved of
all four-legged Venetian icons.
You may or may not feel you have time to visit any of the outlying
islands. If you do, I’d recommend Burano and Torcello as the two most
worth the whistle. Seen together, with perhaps a lunch on either island
in between, they make a nice excursion out of Venice proper.
Torcello was the very first island settlement, founded in 639, and
swelling to a metropolis of some twenty thousand inhabitants before
malaria and the silting up of its lagoon access forced the exodus of its
populace to those distant islands which were to become the city of
Venice. Torcello’s diversions are few: two sad, marvelous churches, a
couple of restaurants, and an inn. Fewer than a hundred people currently
live on the island. Depending on what time of day you visit, and the
extent of the crowds, Torcello can be an evocative, haunting experience.
Burano, on the other hand, is still an unsophisticated fishing village,
and while there isn’t much to do there except walk around, the simple
houses painted in their dazzling primary colors are a happy eyeful,
especially on a sunny, breezy day. For camera types, Burano and color
film are a match made in heaven.
I am a sucker for the #1 vaporetto (the local), which chugs up and down
the Grand Canal. Be conniving and ruthless in your efforts to secure a
coveted outside seat near the prow, because the effort is worth it. The
ride, lasting about forty breathtaking minutes, covers the entire length
of the Grand Canal.
A BIT OF ADVICE: Try, if the ride itself is your primary objective, to go
in the direction opposite the heaviest tourist flow. This means that in
the morning, when the hoards are coming in from the carpark and the
railway station, you should get on the vaporetto headed in the opposite
direction, towards the railway station. Better than boarding the boat at
San Marco (which tends to be a crowded stop) is boarding at San Zaccaria,
Arsenale, or Giardini. Reverse the procedure in the evening, when the
daytrippers begin their exodus out of Venice. Board at the train station
and head down towards San Marco.
Europe’s first sip of coffee occurred in Italy. Florian’s, in the Piazza
San Marco, was Italy’s-----and therefore Europe’s-----first coffeehouse.
It is ridiculously expensive, and during the day its outside tables are
often crowded with people drinking coffee, feeding pigeons, and listening
to dueling orchestras grind out their renditions of New York, New York
and Arrivederci, Roma. Still, it is hard not to love Florian’s. The best
time to go is after dinner on your way back to the hotel. And sit, with
the ghosts of Wagner, Casanova, and Byron in one of the cafe’s beautiful
inside rooms. Order cappuccino and a scoop of hazelnut gelato. (If you’re
into decaf, decaffeinated coffee in Europe goes by the generic name Cafe
Hag, much as we in the USA once referred to all decaf as Sanka. Hag is
pronounced "AHG" in Italian. Happily, Cafe Hag tastes indistinguishable
from fine dripped coffee, while Sanka tastes like swamp water.)
Do walk around Venice after dark. It is the safest city statistically and
by reputation in all of Europe, and at night its powdery pastels fade to
ghostly monochrome. It is fabulous.
The city reputably has some great seafood restaurants. As a vegetarian,
I can't vouch for any of them, unfortunately! Let me recommend the
following, however, which is a sweet and charming little place way off
the beaten path. While a vegetarian can eat well here, it is by no means
a strictly vegetarian restaurant.
La Zucca (In the Sestirere of Santa Croce. Vaporetto stop:San Stae.
Located on the Ponte del Megio off Calle Larga. Tel. 524-1570. Closed
Sunday.) A real Venetian neighborhood, not frequented by tourists.
Buon Viaggio!
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antonico genzen
<Broo...@aol.com> wrote:
> Don't go anywhere without a great---by which I mean a GREAT---map. You'll
> want the largest, most detailed map you can get your hands on, which, in
> my opinion, is the one put out by Studio F.M.B. Bologna. It's not
> available in the USA, but can be found in Italian bookstores. You should
> know that there are NO maps of Venice detailed enough to fully chart the
> complexities of the city. To further complicate matters, street names
> often repeat themselves in the different sestiere (sections) of the city,
> and the Venetians like to change the spelling of street names, sometimes
> on street signs within fifty yards of each other. Same street, mind you,
> different spelling! Ultimately, you may find these (and countless other
> eccentricities) among Venice's most lovable traits.
Sometimes, when people ask us for the right way to go S.Marco, we
answer: "follow the tide" ;-)
But the problem is that nobody can remember an explanation "from Frari
to S.Marco"!
So we have to say: "cross that bridge and ask again"
Well, i think that a person with a good sense of direction and an idea
of the zone to reach, can quickly have success (during a not foggy day);
this is because you have hundred of alternative to the "right way".
So you can also find two locals in fifty meters suggesting opposite
directions!
--
Antonella Gentile oOo oOo Nicolo' Zen
gen...@unive.it O O O O nz...@leonardo.math.unipd.it
O (o)(o) O
Venezia OoO oo OoO DorsoDuro 3300
Durant Imboden
Broo...@aol.com wrote in message <886125730...@dejanews.com>...
>Don’t go anywhere without a great---by which I mean a GREAT---map. You’ll
>want the largest, most detailed map you can get your hands on, which, in
>my opinion, is the one put out by Studio F.M.B. Bologna. It’s not
>available in the USA, but can be found in Italian bookstores. You should
>know that there are NO maps of Venice detailed enough to fully chart the
>complexities of the city. To further complicate matters, street names
>often repeat themselves in the different sestiere (sections) of the city,
>and the Venetians like to change the spelling of street names, sometimes
>on street signs within fifty yards of each other. Same street, mind you,
>different spelling! Ultimately, you may find these (and countless other
>eccentricities) among Venice’s most lovable traits.
Large maps are handy when you're sitting in a cafe or in your hotel room,
but they can be hard to use when you're standing in a crowded street with
the wind blowing. That's why I suggest carrying several maps:
1) A free map like the one you can get from the Venice Tourist Office. These
aren't terribly detailed, but they're convenient for getting an overview.
(E.g., "Okay, we're here in the Piazza San Marco, and there's the Rialto
Bridge. So we need to head thataway.")
2) A large, detailed street map of the kind you recommend. (Other good ones
are published by Hallwag and the Touring Club of Italy).
3) A spiral-bound pocket street atlas like the one published by the Touring
Club of Italy. I don't remember the exact price offhand--I think it's in the
15,000-lire range--but it's well worth the cost if you plan to spend more
than a day or two in Venice. It's more detailed than any folding map that
you're likely to find, yet it's small enough that you can use it without
looking like an orchestra conductor who's spreading his arms at a dramatic
moment in a symphony.
TCI (the Touring Club of Italy) also publishes a nice guidebook, similar in
size to the Michelin Green Guide, that has excellent maps in the back. This
book might be a good compromise for someone who's going to be in Venice for
a short time and doesn't want to spend a lot of money on guidebooks and
maps.
Finally, I have a review of tourist maps to Venice at:
http://govenice.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa031797.htm
- Durant Imboden
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Europe for Visitors,
http://goeurope.miningco.com
Switzerland for Visitors,
http://goswitzerland.miningco.com
Venice for Visitors,
http://goeurope.miningco.com/library/weekly/bl-venice.htm
Ken Lee
>> Don't go anywhere without a great---by which I mean a GREAT---map. You'll
>> want the largest, most detailed map you can get your hands on, which, in
>> my opinion, is the one put out by Studio F.M.B. Bologna. It's not
>> available in the USA, but can be found in Italian bookstores. You should
>> know that there are NO maps of Venice detailed enough to fully chart the
>> complexities of the city.
Even a good map of Venice won't help you much unless you're very
dedicated. The streets are short and windy and finding them on your map
will be difficult. Instead, I recommend bringing a compass. If you get
lost, you can easily point yourself in the right direction. Just
wandering the back street is alot of fun as well. Bring a guide book
with you so when you wander upon an interesting looking church or
square or museum, you can look up its history.
-------
Ken Lee, ken...@rahul.net, http://www.rahul.net/kenton/
hamilton
In article <6avr1d$vc_...@514.rahul.net>, ken...@nojunk.rahul.net (Ken
Lee) wrote:
> >> Don't go anywhere without a great---by which I mean a GREAT---map. You'll
> >> want the largest, most detailed map you can get your hands on, which, in
> >> my opinion, is the one put out by Studio F.M.B. Bologna. It's not
> >> available in the USA, but can be found in Italian bookstores. You should
> >> know that there are NO maps of Venice detailed enough to fully chart the
> >> complexities of the city.
>
> Even a good map of Venice won't help you much unless you're very
> dedicated. The streets are short and windy and finding them on your map
> will be difficult. Instead, I recommend bringing a compass. If you get
> lost, you can easily point yourself in the right direction. Just
> wandering the back street is alot of fun as well. Bring a guide book
> with you so when you wander upon an interesting looking church or
> square or museum, you can look up its history.
>
It isn't that big a place and it is easy to orient oneself whenever
you get to the large canals or landmarks. The small free maps one can
pick up anywhere, are perfectly adequate. Who really cares where you
are -- unless you are trying to find some very arcane and particular
spot?
k