La nebbia

Fog (nebbia) is incredibly beautiful in Venice and it gives the city a really mysterious and secretive feel.
When we're in Venice there are often days with really heavy fog but this year we have had clear bright days except for our last morning. After checking out of our apartment we spent the last hour before our train left racing around taking photos.  I'm glad that we did as the fog was beautiful and in some parts of the city and on the water, visibility was really low.

 View from the Rialto

 The Rialto markets 

 Campo S. Angelo with the leaning Campanile barely visible in the background

 Gondolas near the Rialto

 Three gondolas in the Grand Canal with one stupid tourist trying to stand up. If he'd fallen in it would have been very difficult to find him.

 The same gondolas about 30 metres away

 View from the Ponte degli Scalzi

Chiesa San Simeone Piccolo across from the railway station is visible through the fog

Calli e canali

In Venice one of the names for streets is calle (calli plural) and the canals, canale  (canali plural, much easier).  It is almost impossible to find a canal which isn't beautiful or interesting in some way and the streets are equally interesting. I'll post more  as I go through the 1000s of photos that we have taken.

San Polo

Canaregio

Cannaregio

Cannaregio

San Polo

Grand Canal

Ways of doing things Venice style

Delivering goods to shops

Furniture removal guys

Virgili del fuoco, the Fire Brigade

More removalists

Taking your dog for a paddle instead of a drive

Hanging out the washing

Delivering luggage to a hotel

Sempre uguale ma sempre diverso

Even though you walk often around the same streets there is always something new to see. The same things look different, the light is different, there are different people, always the same but always different.

I don't know how many photos we have from this spot. 

 The beautiful light at dusk

 The Basilica of San Marco is still being restored. It is a huge job to maintain it given the inundations of water and tourists

So many beautiful canals

30th Venice Marathon 2015

Rob ran in his fifth Venice Marathon on Sunday 25th October.  For those of you who aren't runners, a marathon is 42.2km on the direct course but people usually run a bit more -crossing over for drink stops etc always adds to the distance. This year it was the 30th Venice Marathon and as usual Venice put in a lot of effort to make it a successful event.

The race starts in front of the Villa Pisani in Stra and finishes  near the Giardini on Riva Dei Sette Martiri in Venice.

Rob waiting for the bus to Stra.  We were up at around 5.00am to get to Mestre by 7.00am in time for Rob to catch the bus.  The race didn't start until 9.45am -a long time hanging around.

 The start of the Venice Marathon

(https://www.facebook.com/ASDVenicemarathon/photos)/

This is how Rob found the marathon this year:

The Venice Marathon starts at Ca Pisani, a Venetian villa at Stra on the Brenta River canal. After an Alpini brass band played the national anthem the music switched to a loudly played Back in Black by ACDC as the runners crossed the start line.

The first 18km is mainly along the canal with many beautiful villas along the way and passes through the towns of Dolo, Mira and Malcontenta. This is a great part of the race with fantastic scenery and great local crowds giving great support to all the runners. With many local runners in the event there were frequent shouts of recognition and local support.

There are a few kms of not so scenic running through the Marghera port area before moving through some leafy promenades and then the central piazza of Mestre. Runners then move through the large  expanse of Parco San Giuliano. At about 32km the runners reach the Ponte de La Liberta to run across the Laguna to Venezia. I always have mixed feelings here. It is great to be on the lagoon but the Ponte is a long 4km at that stage of the run.

Once in Venezia we have a couple of kms through the port area before running along the Zatterre alongside the Giudecca Canal. Runners then cross a pontoon bridge from Punta della Dogana across the Grand Canal. It is a long bridge set just for the event and gives a special view of the Grand Canal.
From there it is through Piazza San Marco, along the Riva dei Schiavoni and Riva dei Sette Martiri. The last 3 kms are amazing even though difficult because of the bridges - 7 just in the last kilometre.

From the beginning of the race the crowds were absolutely fantastic, cheering on runners they knew and visitors. There were about 20 different bands - garage, punk, blues, pop, metal, and a Kiss cover band. We also had locals banging pots and pans from balconies, lone saxophone players and generally people supporting any way they could.   I was lucky as I had some support too - Michele and Francesca in Mestre with the Australian flag and Chris at the finish.
The weather was perfect. A great event.  Thanks to the Venice Marathon Club and to the many volunteers who helped runners along the way.

 Rob nearing the finish line it was one of his best times yet which is pretty incredible as he had very little time to train this year. Sorry about the head in the corner of the photo, I did well to get a photo at all as there were so many people cheering and encouraging the runners. A really nice atmosphere.

 A tired Rob after the race

 It was a great medal for finishers this year -very Venetian in maroon and gold

La Fenice

La Traviata is on at La Fenice a few days after we leave for Rome - bad timing, we loved going to the opera here last year.

 Not far from la Fenice

 This head was above a window - must have been recently cleaned as he is much brighter than his surroundings

Venice in the October sun

We have had absolutely brilliant weather in Venice - a bit cold but blue skies and very sunny.  We have spent our days wandering around  and eating at interesting places.

 There is always lots of manoeuvering with boats

 A line of tourists waiting to load their luggage onto a  water taxi

 The Canareggio Canal

 Many Jewish people were sent to their deaths in Concentration Camps by the Germans from Venice in World War Two. This monument is near the Casa di Riposo - elderly people were brutally taken from the nursing home.

We know of one person who lived in Venice and was related to the Abolafio side of the family who was killed at Auschwitz. There were many other surnames in the monument that are in the Venice family tree including Rava', Sacerdote and Mendes. So horrible.

Another day in Venezia

Rain was predicted so we went out prepared but apart from a ten minute downpour when we were at San Marco the weather was lovely.  The rain was great because it cleared the dust and the air was fresh.  Our cousins in Mestre didn't fare so well, they got absolutely soaked when they were walking home from a computer class and the rain lasted longer there as well.

 We just spent the day wandering around and loved it.

We'll have to stop taking photos here -I try to but the light always makes it look a bit different

We also haven't taken enough photos of gondolas from the Rialto :)

We reciprocated in taking photos for another couple of tourists

A gondoliere with his telefonino - Italians are as bad as Australians with mobile phones, though maybe not in restaurants.

The downpour cleared San Marco

Except for this guy who was enjoying being the centre of attention.  Not the right body shape for the wet Tshirt look

Gondolas in their raincoats

Hope the tourists managed to get out before the gondoliere covered the seats

From the Accademia bridge -di nuovo :)

e un altro :)

This guy was very brave paddling down the Grand Canal in a kayak.  The boats are all much slower now -except for the occasional taxi.  Some German tourists died in a gondola/vaporetto accident near Rialto in the summer and as a result the Commune has more tightly regulated traffic, speeds etc