Venice Kayak

On the second day we went back to Venice, but this time through the front door. Marco had taken a day off work to join us, so he led the way.

We paddled along the Lido, where we met one of the great cruise ships, then across towards San Servolo and then San Giorgio Maggiore. As we passed the Canale della Grazia, we arrived right in front of St. Mark’s square.

The St. Mark’s basin is one of the more difficult spots in Venice. Traffic can be quite intensive, with boats of all kinds, from transatlantic cruiseships of 15 storeys above the water line, across car ferries and vaporetti to taxis, motorboats and gondolas. All this activity creates some very choppy waves of up to half a metre.

We opted for a break in front San Giorgio Maggiore, to relax a bit, take some photos of the truly spectacular cityscape in front of us, and make sure everybody knew what to do when we started the 400m crossing.

Fortunately, traffic was light but it is still a tricky process getting across, with numerous stops along the way, and much care of keeping the group as compact as possible.

In front of St. Mark’s is an enclosure of wave breakers, which creates a calm area for the many gondolas working off the waterfront of the square. We crept in there for more photos and just hanging around, enjoying the unique viewpoint we had all to ourselves. General giddiness dictated a few rolls in front of St. Mark’s, just because After all, when is the next time you get a chance to do that?

We then continued into “Gondolandia”, that is, the area between S. Marco and Rialto, where most of the gondolas circle. Paddling there is on their terms, you have to go where you can go, not necessarily where you’d like to go.

We went under the Bridge of Sighs, which didn’t look good because the palaces on both sides of the canal were covered in scaffolding, passed S. Maria Formosa and stopped al cavallo (Piazza SS. Giovanni e Paolo) for lunch and ice cream. There’s a really good gelateria there.

After lunch we continued towards Rialto, went a bit up the Canal Grande and took a small turn into the Sestiere S. Polo before returning to Canal Grande further down. Along here we met a very curious sight – one of the few canal sweepers employed by the city to keep the canals clean.

We then returned to “Gondolandia” by the canal that passes under the apsis of S. Stefano, only to get utterly stuck in a gondola traffic jam. It took quite some time to extricate the entire group.

Its a bit of a pain being in charge of a group under such conditions. There’s no turning around, so it involves a bit of shouting messages up and down the canal and a lot of patient waiting. I don’t think our guests minded, though. They had first class seats to the entire show, and got a very good impression of how the whole gondola business is run, and also a close up look at how the gondolieri operate their boats.

Once we’d all gotten out, it was time to head back home to San Nicolò. We followed almost the same route, crossing the Canale Giudecca to San Giorgio Maggiore, around San Servolo and up along the Lido to the camping.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 21st, 2008 at 12:36 and is filed under Kayaking in Venice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.