Day 259 - Off to Venice

Famous St. Mark's 

Thirty years ago, my lovely wife and I were preparing for our wedding and our honeymoon that followed. The honeymoon was going to include a stay in Venice. When we did get there, we had only one day (we were on a 22-countries-in-21-days tour through Europe) and even then the night before and the night after Venice were spent at a hotel on the mainland. This time we are spending a week here before taking a train back to London (spending a few days in Turin and Paris on the return ).

Our British Airways flight was scheduled to arrive into Venice at 5 p.m., but as this is the 4th of July it wasn't a surprise when our flight was delayed 90 minutes because air traffic control appeared to be holding flights back across Europe.

Church of San Giorgio Maggiore

Upon arrival at the airport, we still had to take the airport bus to the Venice bus centre and then a water bus to the stop by our hotel in the St. Stae area of the Grand Canal. We are spending 3 nights at Ca' Bonvicini, a small B&B where we stayed five years ago on our 25th ... getting the idea that we like Venice to celebrate romance? We'll be spending the other 3 nights on Burano (actually an adjacent island called Mazzorbo) and will tell you all about that when we get there. 

The Ca' Bonvicini is a lovely spot and our room has a triple aspect with two large windows overlooking a narrow canal, another on a small side canal and the last on a pretty internal courtyard.  This makes for a delightful breeze in the morning as we sit and eat the breakfast they bring to our room.

Our hotel and the room
overlooking the canal

We'll be chatting about our stay here over the next six days, but on our arrival I thought I'd provide a brief history of Venice. It lies in a collection of 118 islands connected throughout by bridges and by boats. A 4-kilometre road and rail line link the islands with the mainland. Venice is home to about 55,000 residents. It only became part of Italy in 1866; before then it was an independent state until occupied by the French under Napoleon (1797) and then controlled by the Austrians when he gave it to them. When Italy defeated Austria in the 3rd Italian War of Independence, they took back this area and incorporated it as part of the Kingdom of Italy. The city survived without much damage during the Second World War and interestingly was taken by New Zealand troops as part of the Allied victory over Fascist Italy. Today tourism is a major revenue generator with more tourists visiting the city each day during the high season than actually live here. It has become a significant issue for the sustainability of the city and I look forward to examining this for myself over the next few days.

Ale of the Day: Unfortunately I have suspended this segment until my return to the UK as there are no real ales available here - just lagers which I will suffer with until then.