Venice (Venezia): so much to see via canals and boats

The flight ✈️ from Monaco was quick and easy, the bus ride to Venice Island was even shorter. We walked the 18 minutes to our Airbnb and Terri counted the 78 stair steps to the fifth floor where our unit was located; there was no elevator in the building. Our host, Christina, was a kind, older Italian lady that spoke broken English but she was had our unit well prepared with beer, water, wine, espresso machine and pastries for breakfast. She spent 15 minutes with us highlighting the sights to see around Venice and it’s neighboring islands. Our unit looked out one side onto the canal and the other side to a nearby church tower with it’s ringing bells.

Venice is a maze of big and small canals with narrow pedestrian passageways. The layout seems to have been done by a drunk monk as there is no recognizable pattern, google maps works really well and even includes the water-taxis in any directions. We saw a lot of people trying to navigate with only a map, very frustrating it appeared to us.

All goods are shipped via the canals as well as they are the only forms of transportation, there are no cars, trucks or buses, too many steps to use a bicycle: it’s walk or take a boat and walking is never direct with so many canals to cross.

With an unlimited water taxi pass, we spent our days sightseeing around Venice, Murano and Burano, sampling lots of pastas, wines and gelato.

On our last morning, we took a water taxi to our bus stop but got off one stop too early. Already running a bit late, we could see our bus waiting at the stop but we were fenced-off from getting to it directly. The best option I saw was to climb around the pedestrian barrier, hanging over a 10 foot drop into the water. For obvious reasons for not asking Terri, I climbed around the barrier with my pack on and then told her to hand me her pack. Terri then climbed around the barrier – what a gal! We then ran, with our packs on, to the waiting bus – that turned out not to be ours after all. 😂😂 😂I wish I had a video!

Next stop: Ljubljana, Slovenia by bus 🚌