Venice, Italy: Both times the DrsC have visited Venice the weather has been wet and rainy. It probably has something to do with the time of year we go traveling - almost always in spring and fall, rarely in summer unless we are taking the family along.
Venice is certainly unusual, with canals instead of roads, but I don't find it as wonderful as most folks do. Picturesque to be sure but hard to get around and to tour, an easy place to get lost. The city occupies over 100 islands in what was once a large marsh.
Our ship will be here at least parts of three consecutive days, as we disembark pax and embark new ones. Each set of pax gets an overnight in Venice in our huge white floating hotel; those of us doing both legs get two overnights and three days here - perhaps too much of a good thing.
My favorite parts of visiting Venice by ship are sailing in and sailing out. It feels like we sail slowly right through the city, which we dwarf with our seventeen story height.
Nothing in Venice is nearly that tall, not even the campaniles. It must not be easy to build "tall" on a wet, muddy base, we are told everything is built on pilings driven into the mud. These were once wood, I'd guess the new ones are metal or concrete.
If you take a gondola ride through those canals, you often smell sewage. Maintaining what our cousins the Brits call "the drains" underwater cannot be easy, my nose tells me they may not try too hard. I'd guess the e. coli count in lagoon water is often at unsafe levels. Like the canals of Amsterdam, those of Venice are no place for swimming.
