Discovering Venice

One of the things that makes Venice so unique, other than that it is a city built on water is the lack of car noise. No roads, no cars, no horns, no screeching tires. Just the clip-clop of heels and toes against the old cobblestones. Venice is a city to explore on foot. To meander the mazes of calle. And to get lost in the alleys. Yes, many a calle is mistakenly navigated, only to wind up at an impasse. No bridge to cross, no corner to turn. Only the possibility of retracing your steps, searching for another option, and…getting stuck yet again. Or taking a dunk in the water.

And since Venice is made up of 117 little islands, those ubiquitous little footbridges are a means of connecting the dots and allowing you to get around on foot, crossing the more than 150 canals, without relying on public canal transportation.

Venice has more than 400 bridges. Some, which are famous, like the Accademia and the Rialto bridges on the Grand Canal.

And while beautiful and well traveled, I prefer finding the small, unusual, unknown, tiny foot bridges that don’t appear on any map. Some have iron railings, others do not. Many offer views of Venetian laundry hanging against chipped ocher hued palazzos.

On others, you can stand, gaze down and watch two lovebirds glide underneath in their gondola, looking as smitten as if it were a real tunnel of love.

It is the very process of trying to get somewhere by way of map, and giving up, no longer caring about the map or the destination, but only the journey, that lets you discover and fall in love with Venice. The real Venice. You suddenly abandon your travel *to-do*list, in favor of the unknown.

It becomes fun to explore, to see where the calle and bridges will carry you. Although, I must admit that *fun* was not the four-letter *F*-word I was uttering on my first trip to Venice as I traversed many of said footbridges on my way from the San Marco Square to our B&B on the Campo San Maurizio, with heavy luggage in tow. No, that was a very different *F*-word entirely. Funny, those map makers always fail to point out how many bridges and how many steps these bridges have, on the map. It felt like a thousand that day. Especially after an entire day of travel. That experience alone motivated me to become a Carry-on Traveler!

It didn’t change my mind about Venice, though. I don’t think anything ever could.

Where have you gotten lost? What did you find? What kind of traveler are you? Do you stick to the plan, or do you throw caution to the wind and see where life takes you?