A photo walk through Venice

 

  

We skipped across from Croatia to Italy earlier last week – to collect our first visitor from Marco Polo Airport (Aunty Robyn, mum’s sister) – and spend a few days exploring the magnificent Isle of Venice.

It was an interesting experience attempting to clear customs into Italy – firstly on the afternoon of arrival after a long day travel (and whilst bobbing around on a Venice Lagoon waterway) we sat on VHF radio for half an hour in a frustrating and almost comical radio conversation with the Venetian Port Captain's office being handed around to different officials who each asked the same questions over and over. Despite the information we provided, they made the conclusion we were a commercial ship and would need an agent to clear through. So we gave up and navigated our way to a marina for the night. The next morning dad and Mike wasted four hours on foot being directed back and forth to different (and often the same) police and customs offices trying to locate the correct official who wanted to stamp our passports, view our ship’s documents and clear us into the country. As we are not arriving through airport customs – the whole process is more time consuming and complicated by boat. It was hardly worth all the effort after our short stay in Italy, but we weren’t keen on breaking immigration laws so early in the trip! Dad and Mike plan to write to cruiser's resource website Noonsite to recommend an amendment to their ambiguous description of locating Venice's Polizia Frontiera office.

A highlight was motoring finally my darling through the Venice Lagoon entry channel and alongside the island via the main canal. Dodging past taxi boats, canal ferries, gondolas and a monstrous, police-boat escorted cruise ship that towered over the delicate Venetian architecture and was heckled by anti-cruise ship protest boats as it departed. For a tiny destination already besieged by a mammoth twenty million tourists yearly – the eyesore of a very different type of floating city destroying its serene vistas has understandably crossed the fine line of preserving a harmonious balance with tourism.

   Though the appeal of Croatia was too strong, so after determining there was little else worth seeing along the North Eastern Coast of Italy other than a few grubby shipping ports, we skipped back across the Northern Adriatic. Whilst this post is geographically coming to you again from Croatia – I was eager to share some images from what is simply one of the most photogenic cities in the world.  

   

That day in Venice coincidentally fell on the six-month anniversary of Mike and my wedding in Fiji last October 16! It was dreamy place to celebrate the day together – which was also our third visit to the charmed city (previously in 2002 and again in 2006) – here replicating a favourite photo of me in Piazza San Marco and drinks in the same prime location under the Rialto Bridge. Ciao – until we meet again Venice!

 

Sunset over Venice Island taken from our back deck, where we were conveniently tucked in a relatively new marina on Certosa, just across a low marsh canal from the main attraction.