On Leaving Venice — Two South of Granada

The next day, we had decided to visit the islands of Burano and Torcello. We bypassed Murano, mainly because we are not remotely interested in blown glass. It seems like we were not the only ones:

‘It is quite astonishing that anything so highly regarded throughout the world for so many centuries should be of such uniform hideousness.’ J G Links, telling it like it is.

Bearing in mind that this was the end of March, so hardly high season, there were far too many people. I remember going to Torcello when I visited many years ago, and it seemed like an absolute oasis. I think we went in January or early February. The boat to the island this time was full, so we had to stand; great for my protesting legs and back. Boats spew out visitors into the pretty lanes of Burano, and it really is overrun. Burano is known for it colourfully painted houses that line the little canals and without people I am sure it would be lovely. With people milling around, it is tiresome. Torcello is much quieter, and the real destination on this island is the Locanda Cipriani. Owned by the Cipriani family (Hotel Cipriani and Harry’s Bar) it is one of the places to eat in Venice. Even J G Links goes overboard: ‘If all the circumstances are propitious, I can promise you the most delightful experience that even Venice has to offer.’ Sadly, we hadn’t sold our house in Spain to cover the cost of this trip, so our circumstances were less than propitious.

Italy is very strict about the type of face mask you use. When we were leaving Madrid wearing our little flimsy things bought for €1 in the Mercadona supermarket, we were told that we would not be allowed to enter Italy unless we had proper FFP2 masks, so Andrew had to whisk himself off the WH Smith to grab two of these things.

It seems strange, therefore, that the powers that be are quite happy to squeeze 100 people into a square meter of boat space. There were too many non-Italian people not wearing masks, and were all very close to each other. Another 40 minute journey standing up; it reminded us of the Number 1 commuter bus in London, and one of the reasons we decided that London life was no longer for us.

By the time we got back to the city proper, I was walking like a woman aged 103 so I decided to go back to the Bed and Breakfast while Andrew went off to do some shopping. [sneaky negroni actually. AW]

After another quick snooze, the plan was to go back to the Cannaregio area that we had discovered on our previous day’s walk. Andrew had found a suitable place but, by this time, I was constantly looking at the walking distance between Vaporetto stop and destination. We aimed for the area in which we had found 40 Ladroni, as it has a good atmosphere and lots of options. It was Saturday night. The place was packed. These small, characterful bars that looked so enticing and calm during a weekday were bursting at the seams, people pouring out on the riverside pathways. Every restaurant we tried was fully booked. We walked, and walked and aimed further out of the main hubs until we did, eventually, find one place where we managed to get a table. Returning back, we had to run the gauntlet once again of groups of loud people cramming the pavements, something that we are not that accustomed to here in Spain. Of course, there are busy bars in Granada, and people spill out onto pavements and squares in summer, but it never feels like overcrowding.

During the week, the evenings seem to end at 21:00 in Venice but at weekends the revelry continues, although the Vaporetti seemed to think that everything still stopped at 21:00, so we had another wait for our ‘bus’ to get us back to bed. Venice at night, we noticed, is noisy. Not the sound of people dining out in bars in squares, but drunk individuals or small groups who decide it’s fun to make as much noise as possible as they stagger home.

We were up early on our last morning as we had to get transport back to the airport. We had previously bought tickets for the airport water bus, Alilaguna, so assumed all would be well. However, when we got to the boat jetty, the tickets didn’t let us through the automatic gates. We bought new tickets from the machine on the jetty, but these also didn’t work. We now have 5 minutes until the one-an-hour boat arrives. I frantically went online to buy another set of Alilaguna tickets, just in case. The website was un-user-friendly, there was swearing, but we got there in the end, scanned the QR code at the gates… NOPE, the gates wouldn’t budge. By this stage, we were the best part of €80 down on seemingly useless travel tickets; we may as well have taken a private taxi for €120! Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the EXIT gate open as someone walked through it and we bolted through so we could actually get onto the jetty, clutching all 6 of our quite probably invalid tickets. By now, I thought that if anyone were to question the validity of our tickets, they would get them inserted sideways up their left nostril.

When our bus arrived, they asked for tickets, I handed them the pair we had bought on the first day, Andrew whimpering about actually having six, six….but the surly driver clipped them without a second glance and handed them back. It seemed that the bloody ticket scanning machines to get onto the jetty were out of order!

What were the highlights for us? These posts may all sound slightly negative, and they are a little tongue in cheek, but it is difficult to know how best to enjoy Venice. It does help if your knees work and you are happy to walk around all day.

The Gondola ride was a highlight, regardless of how touristy it may seem, but it is one of the few ways of getting into the depths of the canal system, where there are no walkways and very few people.

The history, the architecture, the sheer age and elegance of Venice are unique and beautiful, but it worries me that it is more a museum than a living city that has heart and conviction.

One other aspect of a visit to Venice is the food. We rather agree with J G Links’ summary:

‘In spite of Michelin’s generous statement that ‘Italy has a cuisine that ranks among the most famous in the world’, Venice is no gastronome’s paradise. Indeed, one of the deterrents to living in the city is the almost unrelieved monotony of the food.’

Every restaurant we went to had an identical menu, with a few variations on a theme, and I don’t think we ever had a bill less than €70 (and we really didn’t go overboard on food or wine).

People say “just get lost in the streets of Venice”. In theory, this is all very well but I think you also need to structure your visit, book restaurants, concerts and taxis well in advance and not give a hoot how much money you spend.

Would we go back? Undoubtedly, yes. We both agree that Venice is beautiful but it seems that you have to dig deep to get beneath the age-old veneer that has built up around mass (and we mean MASS) tourism. Andrew and I both wanted to fall in love with Venice, but felt that it played hard to get. We need to give ourselves time to understand Venice, and the approach of the city seems to be that visitors are a disposable commodity - they visit, spend money and go. We wanted to get beyond that and find the heart, even if that meant just sitting for a couple of hours outside a very quiet trattoria and considering for a while. J G Links did so advise when we reached one part of our Cannaregio walk: ‘There is a strange fascination about this lonely part of Venice where the tourists hardly ever penetrate, and we may well pause a while to explore.’ Next time, that is what we need to do - pause.

We will leave you with little video of highlights, with many thanks, of course, to JG.