Venice by Night Again!

Showing the value of feedback, I'm republishing my four views from Ponte degli Scalzi with a little post-processing courtesy of the freely-downloadable GIMP graphics program. These versions are much brighter and more contrast-enhanced than the orginals. On the other hand they're less dark and mysterious. I'd beinterested to know what you think.

f4.6



f11

Venice by night

Here are four views of The Grand Canal from the Ponte degli Scalzi:

For photography enthusiasts, the first photo looking towards the church of San Simeone Piccolo was 1/3 sec at f 4.5 on ISO 200. Compare it with the last one. This one I think looks much warmer and softer.

The restaurant on the left in the second picture is where we had our last dinner in Venice, and we couldn't have been much closer to the canal.

Above is the opposite side of the canal from our restaurant.

This one was 1/5 sec at f 11 on ISO 3200 just to see if it would be usable. The difference in result from the first picture is quite interesting, I think. The water of the canal looks almost frozen.

Well that more or less concludes my series of holiday reports. I hope you found at least some of them interesting. Now it's back to daily showers instead of a Mediterranean heat wave, but at least the dogue was glad to see us home!

Venice by vaporetto

We discovered by accident that day tickets (and perhaps longer seasons) on the ‘little steamships’ or vaporettos (such as the one above lower left) are good value. Though this is the ‘bus service’ of Venice, it’s considerably more fun than a regular bus, most of the time.

Forty euros buys you uno giorno per due (one day ticket x 2 people). This entitles you to unlimited journeys during the day. You can hop on for a couple of stops or sail around the lagoon all day. It not only saves your feet but gives you unusual views of the city (such as The Grand Canal from the middle, below left).




Tip number one: get hold of a route map. The variously numbered vaporettos follow different routes and only small sections of a single route are displayed aboard the vessels. When planning your journey and deciding where you need to change lines it’s a nuisance to rely on the full maps that are only posted (if you’re lucky) at the stops.





Tip number two: make sure you’re at the right stop. Sometimes there are several stops next to each other, each serving different routes, and at a major interchange such as Lido di Venezia the array of stops can be about a hundred yards long. Be particularly careful not to get on the right number vaporetto going in the wrong direction.

Tip number three: you have to present the face of your ticket to an electronic card reader each time you access the boarding pontoon, even if there isn’t a physical barrier to be opened. Having a properly recorded ticket is part of the system and you’re not supposed to be on the landing stage without one, let alone the boat.

Tip number four: it’s great to visit the outlying island stops (such as Burano, right)  but try not to schedule your departure for the same time as everyone else, for example late afternoon when everyone’s thinking of heading back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. Failure to observe this rule may lead to overcrowding on the landing stage and failure to catch the vaporetto you want.

But hey, these are pretty simple rules and there are lots of fascinating places nearby. Venice isn’t just St Mark’s Square, the Doge’s Palace and the Bridge of Sighs you know. In fact if you go fifty to a hundred yards off the main tourist routes you may well wonder what all the fuss over excessive numbers is about.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Historically the Republic of Ragusa, Dubrovnik’s prosperity was built upon maritime trade and foreign settlements, making it a thalassocracy. This brought it into rivalry with Venice, which actually ruled Ragusa in the 13^th and 14^th centuries.

After the great earthquake of 1667 it never really regained its former prominence and for several centuries maintained its independence only as a vassal of The Ottoman Empire. After the Napoleonic Wars Ragusa passed under the control of Austria-Hungary and was incorporated into Yugoslavia after the First World War.

During the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991 the city of Dubrovnik was besieged and much damage done by shelling, requiring much reconstruction after 1995. You can still see the difference in colour between old and new roofs when looking at pictures of the Old City from above.

A walk around the city walls today is neither cheap nor in summer heat all that easy, but it leads one to appreciate the work that has been done to restore ‘The Pearl of the Adriatic’ to its former glory.