Travels: Venice, Part I

A month ago my husband and I flew to Venice.  Our flights were long but fortunately otherwise uneventful.  I slept for about four hours on the plane.  M. didn't sleep at all - he never does on those transAtlantic flights.

We took the vaporetto from the airport to the San Marco stop and found our way to our hotel, which was nearby.  Our room wasn't ready yet, so we left our luggage there and walked around for a bit.  We found a place to eat lunch.  It looked like a modest and reasonably-priced place, but in Venice all things were expensive.  Our two cokes cost us 9 Euro and just sitting down at the table was another 6 Euro. 

After lunch we made our way back to our hotel.  Our room was ready, so we took showers and a nap.  Then we got up and strolled around Venice some more.  We had gelato for dinner.

We hoped that we'd be able to go to bed early and sleep through the night because we had a full day planned for the day after, including going to the Doge's Palace, the Chiesa dei Frari to see Titian's Assumption, and the Academia and taking a train to Padova to visit one of M's cousins.  Unfortunately, we both woke up in the middle of the night and spent several hours awake but exhausted. 

We were able to power through the next day, and enjoyed everything on our itinerary.  We also wised up to the fact that we were going to either blow all of our food budget on Venice or have to just grab sandwiches for lunch most days.   

Ever since I was a little girl I had wanted to see Venice, and I'm so glad that I did.  It is a really beautiful place (and it didn't smell bad, as I had heard), but it did make me feel sad and hollow in a certain way.  We did occasionally see people walking their dogs or carrying groceries through the narrow streets and up the bridges to cross the canals.  But Venice is a city that is dying; its population has been shrinking for decades.  Before long it will be a ghostly amusement park of a city - full of tourists and shops and expensive eateries, no doubt, but devoid of real daily life.