Arrivederci, Venice!

Time to leave this magical city of water and boats.   The water taxi picked us up at our vaporetto stop and we wound our way through some of the canals to the Fundamenta Nuova before zipping to the airport.  It emphasized the contrasts of the ways of getting around.  Before the gas engine, rowing used to be the only way.   Kids grew up rowing, not riding a bike.  it’s a way of life .  Now there are so many different craft so I was thrilled to see this rowing boat for one of our last images as we made our way thru the canals.  (Our taxi did pull over the the side and stop to make room for them).  There are 10 rowing clubs in Venice, many of which will give you lessons -in anything from a 2 person Sandala to a 16 person Distotona.  I think this is a Caorlina, for 6, and the red and white I think belongs to a Giudecca club.   There are 28 miles of canals to row on—- the wakes from the power boats on the larger canals do give one pause….….Younger and with more time, oh I would have loved to do this!

Contrast this with the wild ride in the water taxi in a straight line thru the lagoon to the airport —that’s the cemetery island out the back window.  alas, we didn’t get there….

And one last photo of the “signorina” in the Marco Polo airport……waiting for the plane to London (Oh how I wished we could have made a bit of a detour to Cornwall and Yorkshire, among other stops…a different trip for that!)  H’s brother and sister-in-law were in Seattle for a few days and picked us up at the airport….we managed some dinner but crashed before the sun was down.   Hence the backblip. 

A really fun and successful grandchild trip - more impressions from her later....

If you really want to know more about the rowing clubs in Venice, this is a pretty good article,....