We spent the majority of our Venice time
actuallly in Lido, which is an island off the Venetian Lagoon. There's
a lovely sand beach there and the town had a much more livable feeling
to it than Venice. Lido is a short public ferry ride into Venice, so it
works out well to stay on the island and venture into the city for a day.
Lido is cheaper, friendlier, and in general had better restaurants &
lodging than Venice. There's an excellent wine bar in Lido, where bartender
Gigi entertained us for hours with all sorts of wine and cicheti (very
yummy bar snacks) to sample. You can also access Munro, another island
famous for its blown glass, by public ferry from Lido. The above pict
is Munro's cathedral.
The buildings of Lido are much more modern than
in Venice.
Lido has some canals, but also has main roads
connecting the island.
Here's another picture of a Lido canal. Not
nearly as striking as the Venice ones, but still quite pretty.
Most people use bikes for public transit, and
then ferry to Venice as needed. You see all ages, shapes and sizes
peddling on bikes in Lido.
Me in a cafe.
Most of the pensions provide people with bikes,
so we used ours quite a bit getting around the island.
As it is still so close to Venice, there are
Lions (the symbol of the old Venezia empire) everywhere.
This was one of the days on the bicycle where
we rode out to an jetty on the far side of the island. The graffitti
here was quite something.
More grafitti...
Ditto
These two picts are of the pension
where we stayed, Villa Albertina. The right pict shows fall colors
the left is the palm tree.
Munro
Munro is famous for its glass, here are some
samples. Due to fear of fires from the hot temperatures needed to
make glass, Venice actually forced all of its glassmakers to the
island of Munro. They had to pay dearly for this later, as Munro
charged hefty fees to its exilers.
This is another case of this glass. Its a bit
overwhelming really.
