Venice Italy Canals
Venice is a city in Northeast Italy and is known for it's beautiful romantic setting, it’s exquisite architecture and art. Venice is famous for it’s water canals, which make up the entire city. Venice is composed of just islands and canals. Imagine a city, instead of having many paved streets, replace the streets with water canals. That is Venice, a fascinating place to visit.
Venice is also known as "City of Water", "The Floating City","City of Bridges", and "City of Canals". The New York Times has described Venice as "undoubtedly the most beautiful city built by man". Venice has also been described by the Times Online as being one of Europe's most romantic cities.
Venice stretches across 117 small islands in the Venetian Lagoon along northeast Italy. The Venice Canals originally dates back to the 5th Century, when Italian inhabitants built the city in a sparse, open, swampy lagoon because they were trying to escape from the invading Barbarians.
Why Theâ€¨ Canals of Venice â€¨Are So Special
There are 150 canals in Venice and they act as the streets of Venice. Streets for vehicles do not exist. Everyone must travel by foot or boat making the experience charming and unique. Getting around Venice on foot is the most efficient way of getting to know the city and going to the many of the cafes, restaraunts, churches, shops and museums. The numbers of the streets in the city starts with number 1 and goes upwards. The Ponte della Libertà bridge links Venice to the mainland and ends at Piazzale Roma. Piazzale Roma is the only place where cars can enter the city.
There's 400 pedestrian bridges that connect to the small islands of Venice. Walking is the always the fastest and easiest transportation, next is boat transportation and the Vaporetto’s, which is a water bus that â€¨many of the locals use and sometimes they use the bus taxi which is expensive.
Gondolas “The Venice Boat”
Gondolas are one of Venice’s most famous symbolic boats worldwide. The Gondola has been around for hundreds of years and made with fine workmanship. The Gondolas are easy to maneuver through the canals and require just one person using a single oar. Gondolas are still made today by the master craftsmen using the same ancient techniques. Although the Venetian locals at one time used gondolas as their main transportation, they are now mainly used for the Tourists to sight see. There is also the Gondola Ferry, which is popular for tourists. The ferry has several pick up points along the canal.
The Grand Canal
The beautiful Grand Canal is 2 miles long and the widest part of the canal is about 350 feet. It is the largest main canal and feature of Venice. The Grand Canal is lined with beautiful old palazzos with Renaissance architecture, café’s, restaurants and little shops that line the canal making it picturesque.
The Rising Water of the Canal
During the fall, mainly in October and November, the tide often rises and floods the banks of the canals, the city, alleys and the ground floors of the residences and businesses. The rising tide has always been a problem for the city.
Accommodations in Venice
Because Venice attracts many tourists from all over the world year round, it has many hotels to choose from. There are five star hotels, bed and breakfast and Villas that can be rented. Hotels outside of Venice are much cheaper than in the city.