There is one and only "Venezia", my dream city!

Venice emerged out of refugees from Rome who escaped the Barbarians in the 5th century A.D. and settled on the "mud isles", which over the years transformed into Venice. By the 11th century, it was a major trading city, a seaborne empire was created by a huge navy and commercial fleet by the 13th century. The Republic with the "Doge" as the executive chief for life had seized Constantinopole (present day Turkey) and hence there is a lot of semblance to Istanbul throughout the city. The plague or the "Black death" hit the city 3 times in 1348, 1575 and 1630 wiping out a significant population. It was the printing capital of the world in the 15th century. In 1797, Napolean dissolved the Venetian Republic. After a short 5 months, Venice became an Austrian territory; eventually being a part of the kingdom of Italy in 1866. 

"The buildings of Venice are constructed on closely spaced wooden piles. Most of these piles are still intact after centuries of submersion. The foundations rest on plates of Istrian limestone placed on top of the piles, and buildings of brick or stone sit above these footings. The piles penetrate a softer layer of sand and mud until they reach a much harder layer of compressed clay.

Submerged by water, in oxygen-poor conditions, wood does not decay as rapidly as on the surface." (Extracted from "Triposo Italy") 

The fast train from Florence brought us to Venice on July 12 in under 2 hours. We took the water-bus from the train station to our hotel, "Savoia and Jolanda". To our surprise, it was an easy 5 minute walk dragging our bags, a much-talked about tourist nightmare in this city with stairs and bridges. Our hotel was strategically located in close proximity to the famous St. Mark's square with the top attractions including the St. Mark's basilica, the bell tower and the Doge's palace. The lobby, breakfast room/patio, the room with character and space and of course the location are worthy of mention and exceeded our expectations. 

We started our under 2 day stay in this charming city with a visit to the St. Mark's basilica and took the elevator to the top of the Bell Tower for stunning views of the city.

Modeled on the Constantinopole's Church of the 12 Apostles, the church burned down in 976. The present church was completed in 1094 but extended over subsequent years, serving as the personal church of the doge. The interiors are exquisitely gilded with Byzantine mosaics added over 7 centuries and covering every inch of the ceiling and the pavement.

We paid a nominal admission to go upstairs to the Museo di San Marco to appreciate the highly intricate mosaics and the Loggia dei Cavalli, for a panoramic view of the piazza San Marco below. The museum houses the "Triumphal Quadriga" of four gilded horses dating from 2nd to the 3rd century A.D., originally set on the Loggia, and moved inside in 1980 for preservation. These horses were brought to Venice from Constantinopole in 1204 with lots of other loot from the 4th Crusade. 

With the onset of the cooler evening, we were ready to explore the streets of Venice. By the end of the second day, I had begun to wonder if the concept of a "maze" was inspired by the labyrinthine narrow streets of Venice! I had read about how common it is for tourists to get lost in the back streets of Venice and how it is part of the fun! And I completely agree to both! At every corner of the narrowest street imaginable, would be several people looking in their smart phone GPS apps or the street maps trying to navigate their way through! And we blended right in! Google maps goes awry in Venice, we'd end up on a "dead-end" many times and mind you, this is not your typical "dead-end"; it's the narrow canal where the street ends at! 

There's photo-ops at every possible step on the way, with cute little bridges, colorful facades, waterways and canals galore! With the Grand Canal as the major artery of Venice running across in a reverse S-shaped curve, it has six districts. With the evening sun ray's gleaming on the Adriatic Sea, the historic facades lining the canal on both the sides and the waves splashing on the foundations, it is a sight to behold for hours on end. And when you have your loved one on your side, sipping the evening "Apertivos" together, life does not get better than this!

Our walks through the streets and the many "campos" in Venice continued, interspersed with some souvenir shopping at the boutique stores along our way, admiring the icons like the "Bridge of Sighs" and the oldest bridge, the "Rialto Bridge", which is under restoration currently. We had a delicious pizza for dinner, however we would find out from our walking tour guide the following day that pizza is the last thing one should have in Venice as wood fired ovens are banned due to fire hazard! 

We had signed up for the "Free walking tour of Venice" after finding it on Tripadvisor for our 2nd day starting at 11.00am. Our German tour guide, Jacqueline who had spent a few years in Venice took us through parts of Venice, which even if we'd stumble upon while exploring would not be able to put it in context. It was an extremely enjoyable and informative 2.5 hours tour with fascinating stories on this enthralling city's geography, rich culture, history and music, it's landmarks, the plague churches, the significance of the quintessential Venetian masks and what each kind means, the carnival and its origin, recommendations on "cicchetas", "off the beaten path" places and restaurants. We learnt about the "Apertivo culture", where Italians have a drink or two before their evening meal standing up at the local bars and socializing which we witnessed throughout the city. We learnt our restaurant categories where from "baccarias" to "osterias" to "ristorante" to "trattorias", there is an increase in hierarchy of the ambiance and the price point! The tour was started by a group of passionate individuals who really value the history and culture of the city and are seeing some of it getting diluted over the years. Almost everyone in our group of 22 was happy to give the voluntary contribution at the end as a way of thanking the group for this extra-ordinary insight into Venice. We saw the Accademia bridge, one of the 4 bridges across the Grand Canal and the spectacular vistas it offered. 

With so much more to see and the beautiful weather, we decided to ditch our Doge's Palace trip and managed to sell the tickets. The "cicchetas" (Italian style tapas, we had mostly smaller bruschetta with different toppings) at a local bar helped soothe the burning stomach and gave us some fuel for further exploration. 

We also ditched the famous and over-rated Gondola ride for a long ride on the Vaporetto (water bus), Line 2 culminating in the little island of San Giorgio Maggiore right across from the piazza San Marco. The church is one of the masterpieces of Andrea Palladio, the great Renaissance architect whose work has influenced architecture around the world. We took the elevator up to the bell tower (campanile) to experience breathtaking views of the island, the lagoon and the piazza San Marco with its important monuments across.

Apertivos by the water and shopping were in order next followed by another long hunt for food! La Zucca looked inviting after the thousands of steps that we took to find it, only to be informed that dinners are by prior reservations which apparently get booked at least a few days in advance! We settled for the Tagliatelle pesto dinner at another garden restaurant. The much awaited "Venchi" trip for my last scoops of yummy chocolate and Mango gelato was charted our by Chinmay's Google maps who also warned us that our "business of interest" is closing shortly at 11.00pm!

I tried my best to capture every nuance of the taste and texture of the gelato sitting at the bustling piazza San Marco, where we lingered longer listening to the few live bands play beautiful tunes and engaging in some meaningful conversations about our life and the kids!