Rick Steves - Rick Steves Venice (Rick Steves Travel Guide)

VENICE

Rick Steves & Gene Openshaw

Travel is intensified livingmaximum thrills per minute and one of the last great sources of legal adventure. Travel is freedom. Its recess, and we need it.

I discovered a passion for European travel as a teen and have been sharing it ever sincethrough my bus tours, public television and radio shows, and travel guidebooks. Over the years, Ive taught millions of travelers how to best enjoy Europes blockbuster sightsand experience Back Door discoveries that most tourists miss.

Written with my talented co-author, Gene Openshaw, this book offers a balanced mix of Venices artistic splendors and backstreet charm, from its impressive museums to its tranquil and colorful canals. Its selective: Rather than listing a dozen glassblowing demonstrations, we recommend only the best. And its in-depth: Our self-guided museum tours and city walks provide insight into the citys vibrant history and todays living, breathing culture.

We advocate traveling simply and smartly. Take advantage of our money- and time-saving tips on sightseeing, transportation, and more. Try local, characteristic alternatives to expensive hotels and restaurants. In many ways, spending more money only builds a thicker wall between you and what you traveled so far to see.

We visit Venice to experience itto become temporary locals. Thoughtful travel engages us with the world, as we learn to appreciate other cultures and new ways to measure quality of life.

Judging by the positive feedback we receive from readers, this book will help you enjoy a fun, affordable, and rewarding vacationwhether its your first trip or your tenth.

Buon viaggio! Happy travels!

Engineers love Venicea completely man-made environment rising from the sea, with no visible means of support. Romantics revel in its elegant decay, seeing the peeling plaster and seaweed-covered stairs as a metaphor for beauty in decline. And first-time visitors are often stirred deeply, awaking from their ordinary lives to a fantasy world unlike anything theyve experienced before.

Frankly, Venice can also be an overcrowded, prepackaged tourist trap. But Venice is unique. Built on a hundred islands with wealth from trade with the East, Venices exotic-looking palaces are laced together by sun-speckled canals. It can seem like one giant amusement park for grown-ups, centuries in the making. And yet, the longer youre hereand the more you explore its back streetsthe clearer it becomes that this is a real, living town, with its own personality and challenges.

By day, Venice is a collection of churches and museums, packed with great art. Nearly everything is within a half-hour walk. Climb the Campanile bell tower for stunning seascape views. Linger over lunch, trying to crack a crustacean with weird legs and antennae. Sip a spritz at a caf on St. Marks Square while an orchestra plays New York, New York.

At night, when the day-trippers have gone, another Venice appears. Dance across a floodlit square. Or pretend its Carnevale time, don a maskor just a fresh shirtand become someone else for the night.

With mountains of capital, plenty of traders with ready ships, and a strong military, Venice was a commercial powerhouse from roughly 1100 to 1500. While the city-state didnt have vast land holdings, it was a mighty trading empirebuilt upon a network of Mediterranean ports and a mastery of the sea. If you needed gold from Egypt, silk from Byzantium, or a fleet of ships for the Crusades, Venice delivered.

Basilica di San Vitale in Ravenna; twilight dining with a view in Venice

But with the discovery of trade routes outside the Mediterraneanto America in 1492 and to India in 1498Venices power plummeted. As it fell, its appetite for decadence grew. Through the 17th and 18th centuries, the Venetians partied on, as if drunk on accumulated wealth. Venice was easy pickings for Napoleon in 1797 and passed into Austrias hands after Waterloo. The city threw its hat in with Italy in 1866 and not much has changed here since.

Today, Venices beautifully decrepit cityscape enchants visitors, who are here to soak up the atmosphere as much as the sights. Among the citys iconic attractions are St. Marks Basilica and the Bridge of Sighs, the Doges Palace and Ca Rezzonico palazzo, as well as the Correr, Accademia, and Peggy Guggenheim museums.

Venices calm lagoon harbors the islands of glassmaking Murano, colorful Burano, and the citys birthplace, Torcello, all connected by vaporetti. Nearby towns on the mainland are art-filled Padua, fun-to-explore Verona, and historic Ravenna, glittering with Byzantine mosaics. All are worthy of a day trip...but be back in Venice by nightfall to enjoy its ethereal beauty.

Unmasking Venices Carnevale

Every February Venice celebrates Carnevaleits unique take on Mardi Graswith a weeks-long extravaganza of costumes, food, drink, and entertainment.

In pagan times Carnevale was a wild, end-of-winter festival. With Christianitys arrival, Carnevale evolved into the final debauchery before Lent (the period before Easter when Christians abstain from worldly things). Aristocrats from all over Europe, Africa, and the Middle East came to revel in hedonism, wearing ornate masks and outrageous costumes for anonymity.

Like Easter, Carnevales start date changes from year to year. The festival can extend a dozen days or more, always ending on the day before Ash Wednesdaycalled Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday. It kicks off with a centuries-old ritual: The Flight of the Angel, when a young woman in a costume (and harness) floats down from St. Marks Basilica to greet the thousands gathered in the square. In the weeks that follow, parties, dinners, and parades fill Venices streets and canals. The energy ramps up as Fat Tuesday approaches, and the festivities end with a huge dance and fireworks on St. Marks Square.

For a visit during Carnevale, prepare for high prices and reserve a room as soon as your dates are set. If Venice is full, you could stay in nearby Padua (30 minutes away by train). Rent a costume and join in the fun, from intimate dinners and masquerade balls to cabaret shows and cruises (www.Venice-Carnival-Italy.com).