By Jeanette Teh
By an unexpected stroke of lucky coincidence, my husband and I ended up in Italy on our anniversary. I tagged along on his business trip to Florence and we added a long weekend to Venice, the most romantic of cities, for our anniversary celebration.
Arriving at the train station, we scurried out to the canal banks to catch our first glimpse of the truly unique city of Venice. We paused to take in the hive of activity around us and the sparkling jade green canal that was flanked on both sides by beautiful multi-coloured buildings. The area outside Stazione Ferroviaria was bustling with passengers disembarking and getting onto vaporetti (water buses) as well as stalls with merchants peddling the famous Venetian masks and all types of souvenirs.
The scene that unfolded was incredibly bellissimo and just took my breath away. My heart leaped in recognition of the city I first fell in love with eight years ago and judging by the goofy grin plastered on my face that lasted through our entire stay there, there was no doubt that Venice has once again firmly entrenched itself as one of my favourite cities in the world. We stopped, stared, and twirled around to absorb the beauty surrounding us before we could mobilize ourselves to get to our hotel.
City of many islands
Built on mud banks in a lagoon, Venezia is a completely pedestrian city (where no cars are permitted at all) peppered with over 170 canals. While the entire city can be walked within a span of a couple of hours, but “only if you have lived here all your life”, our innkeeper informed us, the intricate maze-like nature of the little narrow cobblestone streets and canals generally make vaporetti the favoured mode of transportation when lugging suitcases.
We caught a vaporetto to our hotel in the Castello Sestiere. The 118 islands of central Venice, which are connected by about 400 bridges, are divided up into six sestieres (districts). The boat ride gave us a quick introduction to the city and took us through the outer part of the lagoon, passing by smaller islands such as the Isola Di San Michele (an island cemetery). We were amused when we saw police and ambulance boats as well as little boats to transport everything from food supplies to furniture. Since we are so reliant on cars and trucks the thought of not having such road vehicles was completely foreign and quaint to us.
Ciao Bella! – The beautiful architecture and churches
We got off at the Ospedale (hospital) stop and were greeted by the most beautiful hospital we had ever seen with a front that boasted a beautiful marble façade adorned with intricate statues. It turns out, however, that that part of the hospital, the Scuola Grande di San Marco, used to be one of the six great guildhalls of Venice built in 1260 for religious and humanitarian purposes. The guildhall, which later became part of the civil hospital, was located in a little campo (court) next to a canal, a few restaurants, and the Santi Giovanni e Paolo church. However, this 15th century church’s brown walls paled in comparison to the beauty of the Scuola.
After a fervent photo shoot with our suitcases in tow, we plopped down in the campo to dine al fresco on delizioso calamari and pasta so we could continue gawking at the Scuola and the quaint beauty of the canals backed by coloured houses.
Eager to set our eyes on the iconic Piazza San Marco, we quickly dropped our bags at our inn after lunch and dashed off to the most important square in Venice, which was an eight-minute walk and at least 30 scenic photos away. As it was early September, the massive piazza was completely full of tourists (read: packed like sardines in a can) as well as flocks of pigeons, the official residents of the square. As tourists often feed and play with them, these squawking birds would swoop dangerously close to people and boldly congregate all over the 12th century square.
Basilica di San Marco, the main attraction of the Piazza, was built in the 10th century, originally to house the body of St. Mark the Evangelist, in the Romanesque-Byzantine style. It is the largest and most beautiful of all the churches (there are over a hundred) in Venice and comprises five small domes and a beautiful pinkish marble façade. Unfortunately, part of its front was under restoration and therefore partially covered, masking its full glory. The interior, which we saw on our last day, is decorated in stunning marble and mosaics. Some of the mosaics were of such astonishing beauty and detail, featuring life-like portraits with intricate facial expressions (including wrinkles) and even muscle tone. We were also quite taken with the enormous well-preserved books from the 1500’s on display that were adorned with beautiful paintings.
Bridges and boats, oh my!
One of our favourite spots in Venice was the Ponte di Rialto, the 16th century stone bridge that connects both banks of the Canale Grande, Venice’s version of a main street with beautiful buildings and palaces on each side. The unique bridge, with shops in the middle passageway that effectively divides it into two, is a fantastic point to view the hub of activity and the sunset over the Grand Canal.
We were treated to a water perspective of the same scene when we took the vaporetto along the 3.5 km long, S-shaped Canale Grande. Although the boat was always crowded, it was simply magnifico to see Basilica di San Marco, palaces, and the entire city from the water. The ride was made even lovelier with the breeze gently tugging at our hair and cooling us down from the beaming sun.
Since it was our anniversary, we splurged on the requisite gondola ride. We countered the gondolier’s exorbitant price with a still steep EUR 70. “Becaus-zeh you are a student-uh”, said the gondolier in his thick accent, agreeing to our counter-offer without us disputing his incorrect assumption as we were secretly pleased that we looked young enough to pass for students. Dressed in the classic red and white striped shirt, the gondolier sang to us in between dispersing interesting snippets of Venetian facts during the half-hour ride. Because we missed the ‘rush hour’ tourist traffic, the ride was magically soothing as we drifted through the narrow, dark green canals, relaxing in our fancy throne-like seats, our eyes feasting on the spectacular scenery.
The pigeon’s eye view
To ensure we got a very well-rounded view of Venice, we went up the Bell Tower adjacent to Basilica di San Marco in the Piazza. The tower, which was once a lighthouse for ships, provided stunning views of the city. We were almost deafened, however, when we got off the elevator atop the tower as the massive church bells hanging majestically above our heads rung every 10-15 minutes. We got a similarly lovely view over the Piazza from the Basilica’s rooftop terrace the following morning as well.
Music to all our senses
On this incredibly scenic escapade, we were not only thrilled by the glorious views, but our ears were also treated to the delights of live music. In addition to the jazz bar we went to where the band played a tribute to Miles Davis, the fine dining ristorantes in San Marco Square had live orchestral bands playing for their customers and those congregating in the Piazza in a friendly competition for our attention. We would meander our way there in the evenings to listen to the bands play, swaying to the harmonious melodies and then migrate from one spot to another as the bands took their breaks.
Aside from the few boat rides, the rest of our four days in Venice was spent walking around almost the entire city, exploring the various sestieres, little narrow streets, and canals. Despite the many churches and museums (including the Guggenheim) to choose from, we chose not to visit them as we preferred to enjoy the streetscape of the city instead. It was the simple pleasure of strolling aimlessly through one pretty street and across a picturesque canal after another that really made the trip so special.
Walking was not just a wonderful way to see the city, but necessario to burn off all the carbohydrates we were consuming. In order to properly experience the Italian culture, we naturally had to indulge in pasta, pizza, gelato and tiramisu every day. We had the best pasta in the world our last night there — a delectable crab sauce dish so amazingly delizioso that my gastronomical senses screamed “Mamma Mia!” in such pure ecstasy that I truly thought I would burst from sheer happiness.
Celebrating our three wonderful years of marriage in la bella Venezia was simply incomparably romantico and even just writing about our trip brings butterflies to my stomach and pangs of yearning to return again presto!
This article was originally published in 2011 in bazaar.
Jeanette Teh is a legal and corporate trainer, adjunct (assistant) professor, non-practicing lawyer, writer, coach, and founder of Kaleidoscopic Sky. You can find more about her at http://linkedin.com/in/jeanette-teh-601115.