Venice Makes NYC look like Saskatchewan

Darin and I are currently in Italy scoping out a cycling trip for September 2015.  Since we flew in to Venice we had to spend a few days in this fascinating city, partly because Darin has never been and also because I think it is one of them most unique places on the planet.

Because we have our bikes with us, and for those who've been to Venice know, the city is not bicycle friendly.  With the narrow "roads" and bridges that you have to cross every 50 steps, it makes traveling with wheels quite a challenge.  I am surprised at how many wheel chairs we saw in the city (it was only 3, but it would be a lot of work to get them up and down all the stairs on the bridges).  We planned ahead by booking a hotel on the Grand Canal so we could take a water taxi to the front door of the hotel.   The taxi driver did give us odd looks, same with the staff at the hotel, but the bike transport on day 1 of our visit went really well.

After dinner one night we found an open door that lead to a soccer game.  I had made the comment earlier in the day that it would be a very different place to live as it didn't seem to have much opportunity for sports; but alas, that night we saw a whole bunch of runners and came across this "hidden" soccer field.

I love exploring the streets of Venice.  I find the small walkways and how every road seems to connect to each other fascinating.  We started day 1 of our visit with rain, but it did soon clear up and we had great weather for our 2 days in Venice.


Quote of the day was from Darin, who after squeezing through several small walkways and being squished up against people on the busier roads declared "Venice makes New York look like Saskatchewan"

Island of Murano

The second part of our journey involved renting a car and driving to Gorizia, but there were some logistics involved in getting our bikes there, a distance of 500 meters, but we had to cross 2 bridges.  The cost of a water taxi was very expensive for the short distance, a porter was pretty cheap, but in the end we decided we liked the idea of a challenge and headed out on our own.  It took us about 30 min. to cover the short distance, but the luggage survived on the cobbles and we got in some heavy lifting as it took 4 trips across each bridge to get all our luggage from one side to the other.