It rained when I was in Venice, and my girlfriend was sick, so it was anything but romantic. However, Venice has to be on everyone's bucket list. I did Portofino, Rome, Florence and Venice in the one trip, which provides a good selection of Italy. Michelangelo's David and the Medici Palace in Florence was a highlight. Italy is great, but if I had to choose between Italy and Spain I would choose Spain if you can't fit both in. Of course you have to do Paris and London if you haven't been there before.
The best way to arrive is by train in my opinion and then have a hotel not too far from the train station. It's not far to walk to St Marks Square, but easy to get lost, so keep looking for the yellow markers or just try and follow everyone else. Don't waste your money on a Gondola, but catch the public ferries like the locals, because they are really cheap. Ferries also leave from the train station, because the streets are of course, canals. Try to eat outside the tourist areas at some of the little restaurants where the locals go. Anything that has a picture of the food and the menu is plastic is best avoided.
Another thing you might keep in mind is to dress up a little more in Europe, particularly France and Italy unless you want to look like a tourist. Maybe some leather shoes, nice jeans or pants, and a collared shirt. Girls wear high heels, and I kid you not even some police women!
* I carry a small medical kit with me now in my daypack, because of the perils of finding a pharmacist that speaks English. It's no fun if you or your travelling companion is sick as a dog. I recommend including some antibiotics if you go anywhere too exotic, and some Imodium for the dreaded 'runs'. It always comes in handy on the road.
The best way to arrive is by train in my opinion and then have a hotel not too far from the train station. It's not far to walk to St Marks Square, but easy to get lost, so keep looking for the yellow markers or just try and follow everyone else. Don't waste your money on a Gondola, but catch the public ferries like the locals, because they are really cheap. Ferries also leave from the train station, because the streets are of course, canals. Try to eat outside the tourist areas at some of the little restaurants where the locals go. Anything that has a picture of the food and the menu is plastic is best avoided.
Another thing you might keep in mind is to dress up a little more in Europe, particularly France and Italy unless you want to look like a tourist. Maybe some leather shoes, nice jeans or pants, and a collared shirt. Girls wear high heels, and I kid you not even some police women!
* I carry a small medical kit with me now in my daypack, because of the perils of finding a pharmacist that speaks English. It's no fun if you or your travelling companion is sick as a dog. I recommend including some antibiotics if you go anywhere too exotic, and some Imodium for the dreaded 'runs'. It always comes in handy on the road.
I sourced the following travel article on Venice from the Age Online on the 4th May, 2014:
Spires in galoshes
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/activity/active/spires-in-galoshes-20140430-37gpx.html#ixzz30jjWsLaJ
Only surly travellers could complain about the infamous high tides of Venice. Brian Johnston discovers beauty even in a swamped city.
Before we even arrive in Venice, the naysayers are moaning. A combination of full moon, high tides and rain-sodden winds are threatening another acqua alta, those tourist-annoying high tides that regularly submerge Venice. Yet though I'm bootless and umbrella-free, I'm secretly pleased that our arrival coincides with the city's most infamous event. There's nowhere else can you see a city submerged, secure in the knowledge that it isn't a natural disaster but a predictable event that locals take in their stride.
Next morning, as I leave my hotel, city workers are setting up passerelle, elevated wooden walkways on metal legs. Shop owners slot metal barriers across the thresholds of their doors. At 9.50am an alarm sounds: a dull beep like a reversing truck that barely penetrates over clanging church bells. The more frequent the tone, the higher the tide expected. The beeping sounds urgent. Water is slopping over the landing steps of the Grand Canal and bubbling up through grates in the flagstones of St Mark's Square.
Tackling the tide in plastic shoe covers. Photo: AFP
Fifteen minutes later, water is sopping between cafe chairs by the Rialto Bridge. Stall owners set out lurid yellow or purple plastic boot-coverings, outrageously priced at €18 ($27). Water rises and I have to find an alternative alley to the Rialto markets. Soon I'm a little lost. I go from squares packed like battery-hen farms with tourists into empty back alleys where water slaps against apartment blocks. Cracks appear in the clouds and the sun throws pale light on to gargoyles and gateways.
By 10.45am I'm down on the waterfront, where deformed pigeons hobble on pink legs. Water laps the Doge's Palace and is now ankle-deep along the shopfronts that line the northern side of St Mark's Square. The cafes opposite are as yet unaffected. In one, a pianist determinedly plays, like a musician aboard the Titanic. I finish my coffee as seawater laps at my toes, but am still able to hop across dry patches and on to a passarelle that brings me to St Mark's Basilica. Water has covered mosaic floors under the gold-leaf porticos, providing the feel of wanton Roman baths.
Venice's acqua alta is caused when high tides in the northern Adriatic coincide with a warm sirocco from North Africa, usually between September and April. Low-pressure systems and heavy rain combine to worsen the effect. Media reports of particularly bad acqua alta - such as those that hit at the end of 2012 - show pictures of miserable tourists trudging through floods with their suitcases. Yet so far, I've kept my socks dry. Tides can rise 85 centimetres and not be too bothersome, flooding only the area around St Mark's Square, the city's lowest point.
Apart from unforeseen plunges between pavement and canal, there are few dangers in this flooding. Because they've happened for centuries, they do little damage to foundations; Venetians worry more about cruise-ship wash and vibrations. Acqua alta conditions are predicable and the city well prepared. High tides are announced on a website, in newspapers and on noticeboards around town. As a tourist, you'll be well warned by the clang of arriving passarelle. There are maps of walkway routes if you don't want to get your feet wet.
Acqua alta is more an inconvenience to tourists than locals. Fussy tourists beat a retreat, but ordinary life goes on, allowing a momentary glimpse into a more normal Venice. After all, Venetians are used to water. Everything here is floated in and hauled on to wharfs, and life is lived to the rhythm of boat timetables. The ebb of tides is the blood pressure of the city.
I'm happy. The dense crowds of a previous, sunnier visit are absent. I have warm clothes and my Henry James novels. The streets may be damp, but I can lose myself in a labyrinth of sad beauty. There are things to dislike about Disneyland Venice, but its wondrous theatrical allure touches your soul. Besides, it might be winter, but the floods have made people slightly giddy, like little kids let loose in the mud. Adults in galoshes splash, and smiles are sunny.
I take a ride on the harbour. You can complain about the bad weather, or you can admire the raw sky-scapes of bloated purple clouds that drift over sun-touched campaniles and cupolas. By the time I return to St Mark's Square, blue sky has emerged. Turrets and towers are reflected in the floodwaters in a shimmer of gorgeous architecture.
The water usually falls after four hours unless winds are particularly strong. By 2am it's already trickling down drains in St Mark's, but only a ridge in the centre of the square is water free. Still, waiters in gumboots are putting out chairs and, in the Bar Americano, staff sweep the last water out with brooms. An hour later, tourists are pulling off their plastic shoe-covers.
The walkways are already stacked up on the route to my hotel. Venice's mad crowds emerge once more. Shopfronts clang open, and North Africans spread leather handbags across still-damp pavements. The Venice that everyone wants is back but, in the frantic pace of this battered peep-show of a town, the flood has slowed things for a moment, and created moments of magic.
The writer travelled courtesy of Insight Vacations.
TRIP NOTES
GETTING THERE
Emirates has a fare to Venice for about $2030 low-season return from Melbourne and Sydney including tax. You fly to Dubai (about 14hr) and then to Venice (6hr 40min); see emirates.com.
GETTING AROUND
Insight Vacations offers several Italian tours that include Venice, such as its 16-day "Country Roads of Italy" tour from $5025 which takes in Rome, the Amalfi Coast, Capri, Umbria, Tuscany and Venice. Phone 1300 237 886, see insightvacations.com/au.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/activity/active/spires-in-galoshes-20140430-37gpx.html#ixzz30jiQpK2B
