Given there are no vehicles in Venice, everything that one does in a "normal" city is here done by boat or on foot. When you sit at restaurants along any of the canals, especially the Grand Canal, you are treated to seeing everything that you would see on a main city street done on the water. There are police boats, buses (vaporetti), taxis, delivery boats (DHL, UPS, for example), and pretty much anything else that would be done by truck or van. In addition, the contents from the boats are loaded onto carts and then pulled everywhere down the narrow alleys to their destination. It is really quite something to see. I tried to capture some of the sense of this in photos while I was here this time. Many of the deliveries are done early in the morning and, given that the apartment I have rented, is right on a canal, I have been able to watch all sorts of traffic going by. Of course, I failed to mention the gondolas which can be hired for about 80 Euros per ride during the day. Some of them come with singers which costs more.
The following is a video I took from outside the dining room window which gives some idea of the sights and sounds from one of the narrower canals. It includes one of the famous gondolas plus a boat delivering goods.
And...keeping the streets clean, and collecting the garbage are arts in themselves. I got up at 6 am while in Venice, just to see how that all works. Streetsweepers, pushing wheeled carts, which are then dragged to an outside canal, and then dumped into waiting barges. All very quiet, especially when compared to the daytime rush of tourists and others. I am enjoying your blog very much, Maureen.I hope your foot is feeling less painful now.
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