A full day in Venice. There’s just no way to do the day justice in less than a gazillion pictures, brace yourselves.

Everyone knows Venice is the city of canals. But the corollary of that is that Venice is fully car-free. There is a bus terminal and a giant parking garage at the end of the bridge between the mainland and the island, and beyond that, it’s either walking or boating. Which makes the city incredibly pedestrian-friendly.

So we spent most of the day simply walking. There were a few spots we wanted to check out, and as those happened to be spread out across the island, just going from one to the next let us see a lot of the city.

Ingrid’s research led us to a nice brunch place with courtyard seating and generous yoghurt, fruit and granola bowls.

Fortified by our brunch, we walked more. Every channel was picturesque enough for photos; every bridge invited us to stop and admire the views. I wonder how long you’d have to stay here to get inured to the prettiness of everything.

We ran across a gallery with hyperrealistic life-sized sculptures of swimmers by Carol Feuerman.

More walking. And sometimes resting, because it was a bit hot.

Gradually we made our way to Piazza San Marco. I had expected crowds and was pleasantly surprised to not find any. Not just here, but everywhere in the city. There’s people, of course, but not ridiculous amounts of them.

We did book our trip as early as possible after the end of the school year, to avoid both the crowds and the heat, and it looks like we succeeded. Verona was perhaps even more crowded than Venice.

The basilica of San Marco is a stunning piece of architecture. Had we been in town for a week, I’d have spent a few hours just looking at it, inside and out. And just admiring all the different kinds of marble.

It’s a bit jarring to see two huge squares, lined with giant straight buildings, in a city where real estate is so scarce and and all other buildings are relatively small.

The campanile was open and barely even had a queue, so we paid our 10 EUR each and took the lifts up. I had hoped to climb the stairs to get the full tower experience and feel the height, but that was not an option.

The views from the tower were stunning, as expected.

The view from up here makes it obvious just how small and flat the island is. And how uniformly red all the roofs are.

You can also see the shipping lanes between the islands, marked with wooden poles.

Onwards.

After that we needed a bit of a break from walking along more alleys to more bridges to cross more canals. We decided to take the waterbus to Lido, a neighbouring island, both to rest our legs and to see the city from new angles.

On our way to Lido we passed a super yacht, larger than most buildings in the city. Google Image Search identified it as the Italian-built Lady A, completed this year. Apparently it’s only the 360th largest yacht in the world.

Lido is a long and narrow island. The waterbus stop is at one of its widest points, but even there the walk across the island was no more than a few city blocks. Unlike the main island, this one has streets and cars and space between buildings.

On the other side of the island we found a sandy beach.

The boat trip back gave us a chance to see the “back side” of Venice. Fewer scenic historical buildings; more boat garages and loading docks.

Of course the city hospital’s emergency department is also accessible by boat.

We got off the boat at a stop that was somewhat outside the most well-beaten paths to see some new corners of the city.

We ended up having a pretty lousy dinner at restaurant (Due Fratelli) that a 4.7 average rating on Google Reviews but managed to botch just about everything. The servers mixed up tables, some of the items we got were only vaguely similar to what the menu said, the salads were crap, the pasta was overcooked, and when it was time to pay, card payment was suddenly and mysteriously not available due to “internet troubles” so the only payment option was cash with no receipt for a 10% discount. Clearly a tourist trap, and I guess the Google Reviews were all paid for. It was so bad that it was funny. At least the food was not too bad.

And then the bus took us back to Mestre to our apartment.

Bonus photos by Ingrid: