Perhaps you will recall the saying "Rome wasn't built in a day". Whereas that is true I suspect that the saying most often has to do with patience. Rome, however, is a big place with lots to see and do so don't expect to even see Rome in a day. Venice wasn't built in a day either. So just like my report on Rome which was broken into parts, our visit to Venice will need to be broken into parts as well. This first part is just about getting to port.
We were told that the entry into Venice is something that we wouldn't want to miss. Since the ship was scheduled to approach Venice while it was just getting light we had to get up way before sun rise. I decided to try to get a spot on an upper deck more or less centered. Since I had no idea of what we would see and on which side of the ship would be the best views, going front and center turned out to be a good decision for getting lots of photos.
Venice is a major city built on a set of low islands that today would would called wet lands or marshes. The islands are off the coast of Italy perhaps a couple of miles and is now connected to the mainland by a man made causeway/bridge. There is a set of barrier islands that functionally creates a large protected bay. As a matter of fact there are several man-made seawalls/breakwaters that form channel access points that provide some limited ways to get from the bay area to the Mediterranean Sea. Over the years there have been enough times where the water level exceeded normal levels and that flooded the main floors of many of the city's prominent buildings so there are some discussions of putting gates on the entry way channels to keep the high tides out and control the flooding. In the map below Venice is on the right side of the bay. The two red parallel lines on the right and left ends of the bay or the primary entry point channels and there is one in the middle. We were heading to the channel on the right. Note that the map below is actually twisted clockwise about 45 degrees so north is diagonally up and to the right.
The map below is just a google map for reference purposes. The ship took the shipping lane that starts in the lower portion of the right side of the map and made the big sweeping turn to the left. Instead of following the shipping lane as it swept way to the south we headed for the red dot and slipped in between the main island mass and the long narrow horizontal island below. The ship eventually docked over by the end of the yellow line on the left hand end (west ) of the island(s).
The red dot is sort of the center of Venice, that is, the city center. If you look carefully at the map or if you can find a bigger map you will see that the red dot is on the "right thumb of the mitten" on the right and there is a "left hand mitten" shaped island that looks like it is being clasped by the right hand mitten. Another way to describe the shape of the islands is that it looks like a couple of fish trying to eat each other. The backward "S" shaped line between the two "mitten shaped" islands is the Grand Channel. In later posts I will show several photos of and along the Grand Channel.
Here is the first view of Venice. The mountains in the background are on the mainland of Italy. That area is where the founders of Venice lived before they escaped the raiders that were terrorizing them. The raiders had chariots and not boats. The Venetians out in the swamp land and eventually discovered the advantage of living off shore with ready access to shipping. Eventually they became well off enough that they wanted to build something other than a single story building. The soil was way too mushy to support much of a building. They figured out that sinking pilings into the mud would make a decent base for buildings. I heard that there are a couple of million pilings many dating back to the middle ages. All of the huge structures plazas and towers that we would see for the next two days were built on pilings in some cases the pilings were side by side and touching. We have seen a couple of sketches of depicting middle ages workers with what looked like an over sized post diver pounding the 10' long 12-18" diameter sharpened wooden poles down into the mud.
The sun was not up yet so the photos are a bit dull, but as we progressed the first sun light began to shine on some of the taller elements in the distance.
We were nearing the entrance to the harbor and the sun was shining on the many boats exiting the harbor. I assumed that these were all part of the local fishing fleet.
Here is one of the harbor entrance markers.
I basically would take a shot of what ever came into view to document what we saw as we headed to the dock.
We saw several of these fishing boats. Some were outfitted with huge structures that looked like dredges probably for clams or muscles, others appeared to be rigged with nets.
I caught this gull in mid glide following the fleet out to the fishing areas.
We were getting close enough to start seeing individual buildings.
Here are some of the man made structures that are being constructed to control some of the flooding and to manage access to the harbor. Like I mentioned above there is some talk about putting a vertically rising gate system across the channel bed that would be raised when high water, and high tide threaten to flood the city. You will see in several of the pictures that floor elevation of some buildings is only three or so feet above sea level.
The closer we got to the city we began to see normal things of modern life. Smoke stacks for power plants and a small grass air strip for private planes.
My guess is that much of this area was on land fill created by dredging out the channel through which we were now passing. We are heading generally west. the sun on the east side of the buildings is making them brighten.
In the above photo is the end of the air strip, and in the photo below you can see how shallow the water is except where the channels are maintained.
The view above shot with the telephoto lens stacks the low areas that have been built upon and shows some of the low silt bars that are exposed at low tide. It might be that many of the areas that are built up today looked like these silt bars.
We are joined by a pilot boat that lead the way through the winding channel which was also marked out pretty well throughout its length.
Being an island I guess you would expect to see a lot of boats. It never occurred to me that there would be so much open water around and I suspect the area inside the barrier island would be a great place to take sailboats. There were lots of sailboats. If we had been there on a weekend we most likely would have seen many of them out in full sail. Since it was mid week not so much.
The channel to the left in this photo would take you out into some more open water and way south of the city. We headed to the right instead and slipped between the main island and the one just to the south of it.
I am shooting photos to the left of sites on the small island and to the right on the main island as we continue to the west. You can see in the photo below that being on the 17th deck level of the ship put us way above most of the buildings. It was almost like we were flying down the center of the channel.
Like many other place in Italy we saw lots of towers. When you think about the unstable soil conditions the height of some of the towers is pretty remarkable. One other observation is the large number of construction cranes that dotted the skyline.
The photos below could easily have been of a New England coastal fishing village. You can see there were streets and vehicles on this smaller island that were transported to the main road from the city to the mainland by ferry. There were no cars or even scooters on the main island except at the very western end which is where the connection road terminates. There is a large rail yard, and major parking lots and structures for both cars and truck as well as separated parking lots for motor cycles and scooters. For the most part everything from the mainland that comes in by truck or train is transferred to a boat to take to specific addresses in the city.
There was quite a bit of vegetation (trees and shrubs) in some of the suburban and residential areas, not so much on the main island except in a few small parks.
As with other places in Italy there is a significant number of huge churches.
Above is an example of one of the many ferries that we saw
To the right (above) more of the main island and the major part of the city of Venice. To the left (below) more of a small European town.
Further ahead and off to the left there were islands out in the more open water. Later in the day we went out an around many of the islands on a boat tour. Below is one of my first glimpses of a canal. We were also to see a wide variety to bridges to get across all of the canals.
Another shot of the open water just beyond the islands.
European village on the left.
European City on the right. The tower above and below is the same tower. The shot above shows the entrance into the Grand Channel just behind the sailboat masts in the center of the photo. Below to the left of the tower you can see the dome of the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute which is actually facing the Grand Canal
Farther on more views of the islands to the left (south)
Here is the first building I noticed at being built right on the water with no walk way around it. This is not all that much different than the buildings that are built on the canals elsewhere in the city, but this one is quite dramatic. The entry on the side of the building has steps that come right down to the water. I guess that is to get you to the boat easier.
The two boats in the photo above we will be going by later in the day. I will try to point them out.
The two towers in the photo above are on each side of the southeast entrance to the Grand Canal The one on the left is near the Basilica Santa Maria della Salute. The one on the right is near the Doges Palace and Saint Mark's Plaza and Saint Mark's Basilica. More on those sitesd later.
Above the left (south) bank of the canal and below the right (north) bank
In the photo above the buoys are lining up with the entrance to the Grand Canal. We are moving from right to left.
We saw lots of interesting boats as you would imagine. Boats are the trucks, cars, taxis, delivery vans garbage trucks of Venice. The one above has a mini hoe excavator in the middle of it. The two brown posts at each end are actually hydraulic rams that are pushed against the sea floor to stabilize and anchor the boat as the hoe is working, sort of like the outriggers on land based backhoes.
Here was another nice bridge over the entrance of a canal. Below is a view ahead of us.
Above a closer view of the entrance into the Grand Canal. Below is the Doges palace.
Above is a dense water front view with water buses in the lower right and center of the view. The water buses work just like land based buses, they stop at about every stop to drop off and pick up passengers. The the photo below you can see that there has been a ramp added to one side of the bridge to accommodate those who find steps difficult.
More views of downtown Venice.
The shot above and below are looking up the Grand Canal. The bridge in the center of the shot above is near where we started a Gondola ride that evening.
As we floated by the Grand Canal I focused on several major buildings or features not really knowing what they were but seeing them as interesting shots. The white tower in the photo below marks the entrance to the marina where all the sailboats are harbored.
We moved beyond the city center and past tightly built structures that were a blend of housing and retail and restaurants.
In the photo below a significant church structure comes right up to the waters edge. This view is on the narrow island across the water way from the main islands. You can see from the shadows that we have move around to the west side of the city.
Here on the right side of the ship (above) you can see that buildings are less grand and compact. We will be making a wide sweeping turn to the right soon heading for the dock not yet in view.
To the left above is a church that we will soon pass and be able to get some nice close ups. and below on the right of the ship another nice bridge over a canal entrance.
On top of the church dome was this figure. We didn't get close enough for me to get a good close up shot.
On the right (above) we are making a turn around the end of the island. Below you can see in the distance some of the more industrial elements of the city. When we first started into the harbor entrance we saw those smoke stack and now we can see that they are actually beyond the city it self.
In the photo above you can just see in the middle of the photo and arched bridge structure that is part of the causeway connection to the mainland and allow some boats to continue on around the island.
The island on our left is getting narrower as we motored by.
There were two churches across the waterway from one another Above on the main island and below on the narrower island to the southeast.
It is quite interesting to think about all of the construction constraints, technology and plain old effort that would have been necessary to build these structures in these location. Virtually everything (building materials) had to be shipped in from the mainland staged and completed on a very limited site.
The workmanship and building details were impressive.
I thought the picture above was interesting showing the transporting of a semi by barge to a dock for unloading of its cargo.
I thought this set of buildings demonstrated the density of construction when land resources are limited
This church was on the main island
I will talk about the canals in another post, but one thing I heard was that whereas Venice does not have as many mile of canals as other canalized cities, almost every building has access to a canal for transportation and deliveries.
The building above on our left is was a grain and flour mill that has been converted into a hotel. and is about the last building on the narrow island, below another church.
Above you can see the power transmission towers from the mainland coming to the city. Below another smaller cruise ship. We will be headed around the end of the island ahead of the cruise ship and turning to the right toward the dock.
Here are some more shots of canals and bridges.
The Granary converted to a hotel is quite an impressive structure. The original name C. Stucky has remained.
I thought the architectural details were quite good. Apparently flour milling was a good business.
Nice building.
We are now at the west end of the island and preparing to slip into dock.
Another church and another canal. Are you beginning to see a pattern here?
Shortly we would be getting onto a boat like the one below and taking a tour of much of the same area though which we had just come.
As you can see in the photo below the perspective at water level is much different.
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