"Venice" a Venice Travel Page by antistar

Whatever the jaded traveller tourist may tell you about Venice: don't listen to them. Venice has its problems, the main one being the tourist crowds, which bring with them a host of ugly side effects, like high prices, bad food, endless touts, and tourist traps galore. But they are here for a good reason: Venice is timeless, beautiful, and more than anything it is unique.

If that weren't enough reason to come to Venice, there's one more: it might not be here for much longer. Venice is fighting a losing battle against the tide. With each passing year the water level gets higher, and the streets get flooded more and more often. The beautiful old houses along the canals, which used to be home to the ludicrously rich merchants who once inhabited the city, are becoming too expensive for anyone to protect against the inevitable flow of water.

Unfortunately, it can be strongly argued that the vast tourists crowds who descend on Venice all year round are responsible for exascerbating the environmental problems facing Venice. So that does leave the responsible tourist with a dilemma: to go or not to go. If you do go you contribute your own small part to the city's slow slide into oblivion, but if you don't go then you won't ever see Venice before it returns to the watery depths from whence it was originally claimed.

With a bit of luck, they'll find a solution which solves the city's problems, but who knows?

The city is immensely beautiful and photogenic. Views of the canals, and from the canals, of the islands, and from the islands. Everywhere you go it is a wonderful sight. Even the modern industrial part of the city, on the mainland away from the tourist islands, can look dramatic during one of Venice's many amazing sunsets, or backdropped against the snow capped mountains of the Alps. Be prepared to have your camera out and at the ready as you walk through Venice's maze like streets.

If the views weren't enough to have you in awe, then Venice's history should. The city is incredibly well preserved, and contains much of what made Venice famous throughout the known world for centuries. The buildings and locations have names that will be known to everyone: St Mark's Square, the Doge's Palace, and the much copied Bridge of Sighs are just the tip of the iceberg of sensational attractions in the city.

Venice was probably most famous for its incredible wealth. It prospered through its independence, and its liberal trade laws. The city became a world center for trade, bringing in goods from all over the world. While the existence of Marco Polo may be doubted as a citizen of the city, the stories he told were certainly drawn from the many merchants who inhabited the city and trod the Silk Road at the same time as Genghis Kahn ruled over one of the largest empires the world has ever seen.

A vivid image of the city during its zenith can be seen through the eyes of Shakespeare in his gripping tale: The Merchant of Venice. A great example is Michael Radford's film version of 2004, starring Al Pacino as Shylock. Despite the Jewish moneylender becoming a byword in the English language for a loan shark, the play shows that Shakespeare had an incredibly sympathetic view of the Jewish plight, at least for the time.

The play shows in detail the causes of Shylock's bitterness: the abuses suffered by the Jewish people by the good Christians of Venice. While Venice may have been one of the more enlightened cities of the era, it still treated its Jewish population with distaste. The Jews were locked up in their ghetto at night, and only allowed to walk around the city if properly marked as a Jew. Their "sin" of money lending meant they were regarded with a mixture of jealously and pious disgust.

Things I Loved

The canals; the water taxis; the architecture; the sunsets; the island; St Mark's Square; the maze of streets; the history.

Surprises

The views of the Alps from clock tower in St Mark's Square.

Disappointments

Huge crowds even in winter; very average food for above average prices.

I came here in winter, and it was sunny every day with an average temperature of about 8 degrees. The crowds were still large, but manageable. I'd hate to think what it would be like here in the middle of summer with the masses of tourists and the summer heat.

With what must be like 600 million tips on Venice already, I would be adding little to post a hundred tips of my own, although I easily could. Instead I shall post a smaller number of tips grouped by subject area, so that you can get a quick overview of the city and delve deeper if you need to. The travelogue will pick up the slack with all the many great images of the city that I caught with my humble photographic skills.

Photo Album from 2008 visit on Facebook (better quality).