Venice is our final destination. Arriving there we are scheduled for two nites on the boat and one nite at a B&B. The rumors about Venice being a smelly, polluted swamp are untrue. It is a very clean city. No trash in the canals. Smoking is common but cigarette butts are not. Almost no graffiti. Four hundred foot bridges over 100 canals. Tourists crowd the town in the daytime but leave for their hotels on the mainland in the evening.
Traffic is unique in a canal town yet it does resemble Manhattan in many ways. Merchandise and provisions are delivered not by truck but by barge. The city bus is a water bus averaging the size of two land buses end to end. The water buses operate on established routes and excellent service is frequent. Deciphering the water bus schedule and routing is like breaking a secret code. Water taxis are everywhere. And then there are the gondolas that mix with with all the barges, buses and taxis. The slow-moving gondolas seem to have some sort of priority or other magic that makes them amazingly tolerated by the busier traffic.
In the evening on the Grand Canal, the barges have disappeared and the gondolas come out. The water buses operate on a reduced schedule and a few water taxis buzz around. A surprising number of cafes with canal-side tables light the quay. Lights shine from the second and third storey windows in the Italian Renaissance style buildings. Picturesque , quiet and pleasant. The gondoliers have ditched the traditional hat and I didn't hear singing except once.
On the left side of this photo you can see a water bus approaching the landing. On the right side are gondolas in front of the cafes.
Our host at the B&B was an energetic guy that was fun to know. There aren't many B&B's these in Venice and few hotels so the night is quiet here. During the day we visited the usual places by walking and the islands in the lagoon (Lido and Murano) by water bus.
From Venice we took the train to Milan to rent a car to check out the lake district for a few days. The Budget/Avis agency had only one map and it covered the entire Italian peninsula with no detail of the lake area. After a day of wandering around until we stumbled upon our destination, we found the car (Toyota) had a GPS. This would make it easy. Not! How can one get lost with a GPS? Easy - just try to use the Toyota GPS on the convoluted logic of the Italian road system. The mapping system was plagued with latency and before you know it, the turn had been missed and you had to wait for it to catch up before it would recalculate a new route. Italian traffic waits for no one and a slow GPS is more hindrance than help.
Lake Maggiore was nice; Lake Como was great. Lake Guarda was both depending upon location. After driving Guarda's long western shoreline we headed for the autostrada (freeway). Something had happened to close the road leading to the autostrada. This is in the Alps where roads follow valleys so options are limited. We went the route of the detour - a narrow switch-back road over the ridge but the traffic was barely moving. Turning around we took the third option, the highway following the valley north to Trento, much out of our way but also out of traffic. It turned out to be a nice drive and the detour was fortunate.
Italian traffic tends to be a bit more robust than in US but most drivers are predictable. The rest are capable of anything. The one thing the Italian drivers find utterly unbearable is to get stuck behind a car that is only going the speed limit. In this intolerable situation they resort, in desperation, to passing on a blind curve or testing their timing against head-on traffic. Curiously enough, on the autostrada almost everyone seems to comply with the 130 kph speed limit. All except those with a German license plate, of course. Barbara got plenty of isometric leg exercise during the drive. She refuses to simply close her eyes.
During our travels we saw almost no graffiti and no trash. About the only graffiti was along railroads and at a much higher level, artistically, than that seen in US. Europeans are well dressed and not fat. No tattoos, torn denim, weird hair, or low waist pants. In short, American tourists are instantly recognizable. On the other hand, Europeans smoke and Americans don't.
Big changes may be forthcoming quite soon in Europe and I am glad we were able to get this part of our bucket list completed at this time.
Traffic is unique in a canal town yet it does resemble Manhattan in many ways. Merchandise and provisions are delivered not by truck but by barge. The city bus is a water bus averaging the size of two land buses end to end. The water buses operate on established routes and excellent service is frequent. Deciphering the water bus schedule and routing is like breaking a secret code. Water taxis are everywhere. And then there are the gondolas that mix with with all the barges, buses and taxis. The slow-moving gondolas seem to have some sort of priority or other magic that makes them amazingly tolerated by the busier traffic.
In the evening on the Grand Canal, the barges have disappeared and the gondolas come out. The water buses operate on a reduced schedule and a few water taxis buzz around. A surprising number of cafes with canal-side tables light the quay. Lights shine from the second and third storey windows in the Italian Renaissance style buildings. Picturesque , quiet and pleasant. The gondoliers have ditched the traditional hat and I didn't hear singing except once.
On the left side of this photo you can see a water bus approaching the landing. On the right side are gondolas in front of the cafes.
Our host at the B&B was an energetic guy that was fun to know. There aren't many B&B's these in Venice and few hotels so the night is quiet here. During the day we visited the usual places by walking and the islands in the lagoon (Lido and Murano) by water bus.
From Venice we took the train to Milan to rent a car to check out the lake district for a few days. The Budget/Avis agency had only one map and it covered the entire Italian peninsula with no detail of the lake area. After a day of wandering around until we stumbled upon our destination, we found the car (Toyota) had a GPS. This would make it easy. Not! How can one get lost with a GPS? Easy - just try to use the Toyota GPS on the convoluted logic of the Italian road system. The mapping system was plagued with latency and before you know it, the turn had been missed and you had to wait for it to catch up before it would recalculate a new route. Italian traffic waits for no one and a slow GPS is more hindrance than help.
Lake Maggiore was nice; Lake Como was great. Lake Guarda was both depending upon location. After driving Guarda's long western shoreline we headed for the autostrada (freeway). Something had happened to close the road leading to the autostrada. This is in the Alps where roads follow valleys so options are limited. We went the route of the detour - a narrow switch-back road over the ridge but the traffic was barely moving. Turning around we took the third option, the highway following the valley north to Trento, much out of our way but also out of traffic. It turned out to be a nice drive and the detour was fortunate.
Italian traffic tends to be a bit more robust than in US but most drivers are predictable. The rest are capable of anything. The one thing the Italian drivers find utterly unbearable is to get stuck behind a car that is only going the speed limit. In this intolerable situation they resort, in desperation, to passing on a blind curve or testing their timing against head-on traffic. Curiously enough, on the autostrada almost everyone seems to comply with the 130 kph speed limit. All except those with a German license plate, of course. Barbara got plenty of isometric leg exercise during the drive. She refuses to simply close her eyes.
During our travels we saw almost no graffiti and no trash. About the only graffiti was along railroads and at a much higher level, artistically, than that seen in US. Europeans are well dressed and not fat. No tattoos, torn denim, weird hair, or low waist pants. In short, American tourists are instantly recognizable. On the other hand, Europeans smoke and Americans don't.
Big changes may be forthcoming quite soon in Europe and I am glad we were able to get this part of our bucket list completed at this time.