Italy
08 December 2017
Today is a bucket list day for one of us. He is like a child in a candy store. At 11:00 am we crossed the border into Italian waters and the countdown began. As buildings became visible on the horizon
the excitement increased even though they didn't belong to our destination. Then it happened get the camera I think I see the bell tower. Sure enough in the distance you could see a bump then several bumps after a bit more buildings and trees came into view and then some low lying islands and very small fishing boats. We entered the channel and passed the first barrier islands. beyond them we could see and would eventually pass the man made barrier system to stop the sea surge from getting to the city. Unsure of the etiquette of travelling the waterway we slipped behind a Vaporetto and tried to stay out of the way. It was insane boats of every description were going everywhere at high speeds with no regard for wake or waves if there was a rime or reason we couldn't see it. Then we came around a bend and there it was Venice.
Who hasn't dreamed of taking their boat to Venice. Marina Santelena was going to be our home for the next week it was the first marina on the main island and easy to find. When we motored past the break wall we interrupted two boats engaged in gondola paddling practice or perhaps we just made it more realistic. Even though the marina was expecting us they needed to shuffle some boats to make space. We where tied by 4 pm and ready to start exploring. We bought a three day transit pass while checking in at the marina office and headed out to the vaporetto (bus) stop. Hehehe the bus stop was bobbing in the waves caused by the boat traffic we waited for a few minutes then the #5 arrived. The driver was anything but gentle he drove at the platform smashing into to it his lone crew threw a line over the bollard and held on the driver never let off the throttle. Everyone at the stop piled on and we were off. This process was repeated several times as we traveled around the main island of Venice. We headed for the Roma stop. Probably the furthest point from the marina. We were looking
for the Frontier police and customs. New country new check in procedures. We found the police and got our passport stamped then set off for customs which it turns out were closed for the day. Whatever we were in Venice time to explore. We headed back towards Ice Bear and wound our way through the small streets and over the bridges looking at the shops and forming the plan of attack for the next few days. It wasn't long before we
found ourselves walking down the boulevard that starts where the grand canal exits or starts I guess it depends on your perspective and runs almost all the way to the east end of the island.
Walking down this street you pass the Doge's palace and other ornate buildings on one side and all the water things on the other. By now it was getting late and most of the tourist had left the island the Gondolas were all tied in their respective slips and the vaporetto where also tied together and what a sound. Imagine 70-80 ft long steal behemoths tied three and four deep bashing together in the waves not a fender in sight. The sound left a knot in your stomach. We arrived back at Ice Bear exhausted we hadn't intended to walk all the way back but with so much to look at it just happened. Day two started slow it seems the walk was farther then it felt the night before. One of us also traded in the sandals for runners which also ment they lost the sock bet sigh...... We walked to the vaporetto stop and headed back to Roma station to check into customs
we made it as far as the ports outer security gate. the guards looked confused and phoned someone. That someone arrived by car took our papers then some more someones arrived dressed all official they looked at the papers then they looked at something else then our papers again Im certain none of them were actually at the gate to look at our papers but in the past we have noticed Italians
like paperwork and papers from a Canadian pleasure craft were unusual. After about 10 minutes they declared we didn't need to check in with customs. If Italian customs changes its mind and suddenly begins to require private boats to check in its not our fault. We headed into the maze that is Venice. Today's main goal was
to find the Realto bridge. Its the main bridge over the grand canal its not really hard to find there are signs pointing in many different direction to help guide you there. Stores run length wise down the middle and all manor of boat traffic goes under it. We were lucky enough to be filming when an ambulance boat passed under the bridge. I felt for the gondola passengers when it went by. I think ambulances are the only boats that don't need to
honour the speed and wake limits. We walked to the fish market which was for the most part done for the day and watched two men with a barge type boat full of logs set wooden pilings into the canal for a gondolier. It was quite the thing to see they would place the piling into the canal then press it into the silt with the end of the boom of a Hiab type crane. They seemed mostly done when the gondolier arrived after some discussion they lifted the pilings and began resetting them.
It looked like the plan was to build a little dock for loading and unloading passengers. It didn't seem to take much pressure to squish the piling down into the silt from what we could see it looked like there was maybe 6 ft of water and then the piling went another 6 ft into the mud. I'm not sure they were hitting anything solid maybe the little dock was going to hold the piling into place? We went to St Marco square and checked out the exterior of the buildings and generally just wandered around enjoying the city. Day 3 we decided to go to the island of Morano where the glass blowers were. Little did we know that the Italian transit union had also decided late the previous night to stage a strike.
We wandered to the bus stop and there were signs with the help of google translate we got the jist of their meaning hmmf. Then out of nowhere a vaporetto crashed into the stop picked up passengers and left. Seems some were still running but they weren't displaying route numbers. We knew which direction our boat bus would be heading so we stood at the stop and got on the one going our direction. oops poor choice it was going to the wrong island. We ended up on Lido island. Thats ok we stayed on the boat and headed back the way we came. Our second attempt was successful and we made it to Morano. We checked out the glass stores and some outdoor glass sculpture had a late lunch did some people watching then caught a vaporetto back to Venice. Note to self just because a bus stop is closer to where you want to go as the crow flies doesn't mean it is closer to walk.
We could see the marina so we hopped off the vaporetto. This stop was on the opposite side of the marina and not the one recommended by the Lady at the marina office. We could see the boats masts all we needed to do was cross one canal.
20 minutes, several bridges, many narrow roads and one leaning white bell tower later we finally found our way out of the residential area into the one with our marina.