We had most of a second day to explore Venice, as our ship wasn't due to sail until 5:00 p.m. We set a goal of visiting the Venice fish market as early as possible. Michael remembered it being spectacular. The market has been in existence for hundreds of years. There is even a square named for it. Reaching the fish market by vaporetto entailed another trip down most of the Grand Canal. This was fascinating. In the early morning boatmen make deliveries of everything imaginable. Everything must be off loaded from trucks or trains near the Piazzale Roma or the rail yard and transferred to small boats then carried to destinations on the canals. These delivery boats go into even the smallest canals. Delivery boats, water taxis, vaporetti and lots of gondolas carrying tourists clogged the Grand Canal. It was a wonderful chaos. The boatmen are experts – not one collided with another.
We got off the vaporetto at the Rialto Bridge stop. By now, I had seen the bridge from the water a number of times. It is wide with graffiti covered buildings on it. Crossing it, I realized that the buildings are all shops that open on to the bridge walkway. They are tourist oriented places that are more picturesque than enticing. At least to me. At the far end of the Rialto Bridge Michael got a wonderful photograph of a gondolier talking on his cell phone while awaiting business.
We followed the map to the square where the fish market was marked. It was a vegetable market. We wandered the nearby streets looking for the fish market. We came upon the place where Michael remembered it being. That area is now all gift shops and food stores. We saw some beautiful looking piles of spice for sale. There was a butcher and, finally, one lone fish store. The fish market had moved. We found it, eventually, in an open-air building beyond the vegetable sellers in the square. The fish market was smaller than Michael remembered it but the offerings looked fresh and appealing. The fish and shellfish weren't the same as those I am used to but they looked appetizing. I imagine that the market supplies the hundreds of restaurants in main tourist areas and back streets.
After we admired the fish and vegetables, we checked our map and selected a campo (square) and a church, more or less at random, as our next destination. The idea was to explore the back streets and alleys of Venice. We took many twisty turns, several were dead ends but interesting. We found the campo and the church. We peeked inside; it smelled musty and stale. By now it was time for a break. Espresso, offered by a tiny restaurant just opening next to the church, was just the thing. Afterward, Michael found a free Wi-Fi hotspot near a bridge over a tiny canal, checked his e-mail and posted an entry on Facebook. We continued wandering more or less near to the Grand Canal. When we tired of walking and actually tried to find a vaporetti stop, we found that we had doubled back to the area near the railroad station. There I bought a Murano glass pendant and we took a vaporetto back to the ship.
We were so late for lunch that we had tea sandwiches at afternoon tea in the Panorama Lounge instead.
The Silver Wind was scheduled to sail at 5:00 p.m. Michael and I were on the top deck above the bridge wing in time to watch the gangway dismantled. There was a delay. Several people came running from the cruise terminal. We still waited. The captain announced that we were waiting for two passengers who had arrived at the terminal but had not yet been processed. Finally, twenty minutes late, we caught sight of a woman in a wheel chair being pushed smartly by one of the ship stewards, accompanied by another woman with hand luggage hurrying toward the ship. Venice was a transition point between two segments of the cruise. The latecomers were new passengers. About half of the passengers of the prior ten days had left the Silver Wind when we arrived in Venice and another hundred or so new passengers had arrived. The women who were late took a lot of ribbing for the next few days.
There is a tremendous amount of cruise ship activity at the port of Venice. Because we had been delayed, we lost our time slot for departure and had to wait while a very large Costa ship majestically made its way down the canal past us. Cruise ships provide the lifeblood of tourist ports such as Venice but they also impose tremendous environmental problems. The ships are not allowed to move very quickly. Too much wake would damage the historic structures lining the canals. To me that is an argument against huge ships. The Costa ship was as big, maybe bigger than a Las Vegas hotel. Our relatively little ship even seemed large compared to the historic Venetian buildings.
Eventually we got under way and I took more photographs of the Venice shoreline. I have gone on and on about this port because there was so much to see and do. Michael and I tried to do it all. The weather was warm and sunny. The boat rides were outstanding. The walks were amazing. I saw lots of the exteriors of wonderful buildings but it was too nice to spend time inside. I will need to go back to Venice to see the museums and the interiors of churches and palaces someday.
The next stop is Hvar, Croatia.
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