. . . for a little while
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| on the lagoon |
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| Piazza San Marco, the Campanile bell tower |
After
12 hectic days of driving around the western half of France and
living out of a backpack in one or two night stands, it's wonderful
to be able to relax in a beautiful apartment in the Castello Sestiere
of Venice, Italy for three weeks. The area is said to be the last
remaining “authentic” district in an otherwise highly touristic
city. Venice is like a maze of narrow streets with twists and turns and little surprises everywhere. But it is also a relatively small and easily walkable
city. Piazza San Marco, the main tourist attraction in Venice is only
10 minutes away on foot yet the ambience is totally different from
our little neighborhood. Here it's pretty quiet with only a few
pedestrians walking around.
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| on the vaporetto |
We
arrived by vaporetto from Marco Polo Airport and were met by Enrico,
the agent for the apartment rental company we used, at the Ospedale
bus stop and walked to the apartment together. The vaporetto is a
water bus. There is no vehicular traffic in Venice, you either walk
or go by water. All the usual public service functions you usually
think of as vehicular, such as fire trucks, police cars, taxis, buses
delivery trucks and even ambulances, are boats.
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| our son Robin |
Our
son arrived from Tokyo later in the evening of the same day. We
met him at the Ospedale vaporetto stop and we all walked back to the
apartment together, our little family once more temporarily intact.
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| water ambulance |
This
morning I was startled by a load noise roaring down the canal under
my bedroom window. I jumped up and grabbed my camera just in time to
catch the tail end of a water ambulance speeding down the canal
toward the bridge that we can see from our balcony windows. Here are
a few photos of our temporary home away from home.
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our apartment (wrought iron
balconies above man in the red shirt) |
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| typical laundry hanging on pulley lines |
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| bedroom window over the canal |
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| living room kitchen |
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| restaurant deliveries, back door |
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| smoke break |
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| canal view from our balcony |
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| early evening on the canal |
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