Company in Venice

Our guest, Herman and Frea, arrived on Sat Aug. 29.
We picked them up from the airport with a water taxi. Once they were settled in Le reve we went for a tour through the canals with the dingy. The next day we had an intensive tour of Venice with Piazzo di St Marco as our main attraction.

Arriving in Venice Marco Polo airport.

Getting ready to load the suit cases in the taxi.

The "Doge's Palace.
The Doge of Venice (Similar to a Duke in England)
was the chief magistrate and the leader of the republic of Venice.
For over a thousand years Doges were elected for life by the city- state's aristocrats.
Since 1923 it has been open as a museum. One of 11 in Venice. 

The front of the Basilica of St Marco.

The symbol you see all over Venice " the Lyon of St Mark"

 “Pax Tibi Marce Evangelista    Meus”

(Peace to you Mark my evangelist)

This (or similar) statues are seen all over Venice.

A view to both sides of the "Grand canal" from one of the two main bridges (the Accadema bridge) spanning the canal.

The canal is only open to approved water taxi's, gondolas, and the water bus.

Gondolas, Gondolas, Gondolas,
Everywhere in the down town area you see Gondolas.

It is quite amassing how the gondolier can maneuver them through the small, often very busy canals.

Burano

Burano, an island approx. 7 nm from Venice is known for it's lace making.  Burano is a colorful island with 2800 inhabitants.

What strikes you when approaching Burano is the church tower.

And Pisa is not the only town in Italy with a leaning tower

Not only is Burano known for it's lace making, but also for it's colorful houses

Murano

Today we visited Murano. An Island in the Venetian lagoon approx 4 nm from Venice.
Murano is famous for it's glass making.
Glass making used to be done on the island of Venice, but in the late 12th century the glass makers where ordered to move their industries to Murano, as the industry was considered to be a fire hazard for Venice as most of their houses were constructed of wood at the time.  They have perfected their method of producing extraordinary art over the years, and to this day are recognized world wide for their skill.
 They also developed or refined technologies such as crystalline glass, enameled glass (smalto), glass with threads of gold (aventurine), multicolored glass (millefiori), milk glass (lattimo), and imitation gemstones made of glass. Their virtual monopoly on quality glass lasted for centuries.

One of the main canals in Mulrano.

An elaborate glass center piece in one of the squares in Murano. 















   

 The "master's" at work.

Venicienc at work

We went for a walk to the down town core of Venice. Later in the day it gets very busy on the Piazza San Marco, so we decided to leave relatively early and take a look. We arrived at the square shortly after 09.00 and the line up to get into the "Basilica Di San Marco" was over 150 feet long. So we opted to enjoy it from the outside.
San Marco is for sure the center of attraction in Venice. It is a beautiful building, however a lot of the buildings in Venice are in various stages of decay and in need of repair.

Very interesting is to see how this place operates. The island has a total area of just over 400 square km. and a population of just over 260.000  No motor vehicles, the entire island is dissected with canals and bridges that connect each section with the other. When you walk through it early in the morning you get a sense of how everything works.
Small delivery barges with cranes make sure that the supply's get to where they need to go. sometimes causing traffic jams in the canals. We took several pictures to try and give a glimpse of all the activities. 

Laundry service

Delivery of frozen food.

 

Beverage delivery. (notice the flask,s of wine)

General delivery.

Delivery in the back door of a restaurant.

The garbage "ship"

 

All this can lead to a traffic jamb. Notice the gondola,s in the back ground

Last but not least the "gondola" factory" or at least one of them.

Venice

The marina we are staying in in Venice is a brand new marina. It has been operating for some time but the official opening only happened less than a month ago. It is on the main island where Piazza San Marco is. The famous Piazza San Marco is only a 25 minute walk from the marina.

As you can see there is lots of room in the marina so we are able to tie up along side as opposed to to med mooring we got used to.  Along side is so much easier.

We arrived in Venice mid afternoon and before sun down we saw 4 large cruise ships leave.
We were told the center (Piazza San Marco) would be very busy. I can understand why with 4 cruise ships being here at the same time. We will have to pick our day to go visit the square.

Joanne was short a few things to make dinner, so here I am coming from the grocery store. And yes EVERYTHING is done by boat here in Venice, even grocery shopping.

Had to go to the port police to take care of the official entry documents and guess how we got there!!! by dingy.

We went there on the open water which runs around Venice and is quite large, open and rough.

 On the way back we took in some of the smaller canal,s.

This is typical Venice. 

Crossing to Italy

Aug. 23 and the weather is very favorable for a crossing.
Total distance from Porec to Venice is 51 nm.  We left at 07.30 hr and arrived at the entrance to Venice at 14.45 hr.

                                 Could not have asked for calmer seas for a crossing.

The entrance to the main Venice Canal. Unfortunately we entered under somewhat overcast sky,s. What struck us is the wide open entrance to Venice.

Wide open but only the main channel is over 30 feet deep. Get off the channel, and as we saw small boats were anchored out in 3 feet of water (or less) and people stepped off the boat and were wondering around in the shallow waters. They might have been clamming!?!? (my guess)

Porec

On Thursday 27th of Aug we set sail for an anchorage just north of Rovinj.  There is a long ( just over 5nm)  narrow inlet that draws a lot of attention. Tripper boats take load after load of people of people for day trips. The area is off limits for privet yachts so we were going to anchor out just before the inlet (sometime referred to as the most southern fiord)  When we got closer to the area we had picked out we noticed a sign "No anchoring"  So we continued on our way to Porec.

An other beautiful sun set from our mooring in Porec.

Red sky at night sailors delight. Or as Bo would say "pink" sky at night sailors delight!!!

we went for a walk in the park in Porec. Lots of activity there. 

A view from the park over the Adriatic.

Rovinj

                                        The approach to Rovinj from the south

                                 Rovinj like so many, if not all, towns on the Adriatic has a charm of it's own
The town was originally build on an island with a double fortification build around it. As the town
expanded houses were build outside of the wall. eventually it was joined to the main land.

Some of the streets are so small you can reach the walls on both sides

 

A view from the top of the town in front of the church.

The town is known for it's artistic flair.
These two youngsters are cashing in on it,s reputation by selling colorfully painted shells.

Losinj to Uvala Soline

We left to go north to the main land and stayed in a very sheltered bay called Uvala Soline. This is just south of Pula. We had to do a 3 hour open water crossing to go from the islands to the main land.

Istra the first sight of land on the north coast main land.

We noticed cars parked all over on the top of the hill. When we got closer we realized they were all on the beach (rocks)
Hard to see on the picture, but it was packed.

We were not the only boat moving north. As it is getting close to the end of vacation many boats, mostly Italian, and Germans were heading back from the islands.

An other pleasant anchorage.

Solomon came by the next morning with his "floating store"