Logistics of Venice

The logistics of the way people live in Venice were fascinating to Scott and me. One of our favorite things to do was to walk around the streets in the mornings before the town was really open for the day. It was interesting to watch people on their commutes to work (catching water busses in suits), walking their dogs (not many parks or grassy areas, so yellow puddles on the cobblestone walkways were from #1, and the people generally - but not always - seemed to remove #2), young children getting to school (we saw young kids riding scooters down the cobblestone streets - bumpy!), and unloading goods to the shops. Due to the constraints of being based on water and with all of the buildings being so old, it seemed as though modifications to what we considered normal to us, were in fact routine to the people of Venice.

The Rialto market is held daily in the center of town. We enjoyed watching the local vendors selling fresh meat, seafood, and produce. Everything looked so fresh and delicious! It was also fun to guess what some of the unidentifiable items were since we had limited ability to translate the Ialian to English.



The item below on the left is squid and the one on the right is octopus. We ate both while we were in Italy. We ate cuttlefish risotto on our first evening in Venice, which Scott informed me is "squid braised in its own ink". The risotto was dark blue (from the ink), and it was delicious.

The item on the right is less appealing - packaged horse meat. At the pizzeria we had seen "dried shredded horse meat" as a pizza topping, and sure enough at the Rialto market we saw this meat packaged for sale. Scott said he wanted to try it if he ever saw horse offered on a menu again, but thankfully he never got that opportunity.



I prefer the yummy cheeses piled in the window below much better!



Delicious chocolates with nuts piled high in a bakery window. I always opted for gelato as my sweet treat, but these goodies would have been fun to try.

This is an example of a delivery boat stocked full of goods being transported into town. I dubbed this "the drink boat" as it seems to contain only beverages. You can see the kegs of beer, crates of bottled water, and many jugs of vino. We also saw dozens of delivery boats containing food products and other essentials.Once the delivery boats were docked, men would unload them and use these special carts to transport the items to shops, hotels and restaurants in town. The delivery men actually ran down the cobblestone streets with these carts. They certainly looked heavy so I am sure it is a difficult job.

Among the other scenes that were common in Venice were tourist stands setting up for the day. Anyone want a gondolier t-shirt or an I heart Venezia shirt or hat?Venetian masks were for sale in nearly every gift shop, along with Murano glass products and Italian lace.This last photo was taken on our last night in Venice, on the way back to our hotel after we had eaten at the pizzeria. Several cafes line San Marco square, where the waiters entice tourists to stay for a coffee or drink with pretty classical music and good people-watching views from the sidewalk. We were suckers for this upcharged atmosphere (we were quick to notice a 6 Euro "music fee" added to our bill!), but we did enjoy a beautiful night wiht a nightcap before going to sleep. The musicians (in the far right background) were playing Vivaldi and there were less pigeons than usual (and no Japanese tourists posing with them) in the square. As Scott remarked, we have rare opportunities to do something spontaneous like this so why not take advantage while we are in Italy.