September 17, 2025 · 1.59 miles · Venice, Italy
The night had been Venice at its most cinematic. The morning was something quieter — warmer, slower, the city just waking up and going about its business before we had to leave for Ferrara.
We had a couple of hours. We used them well.
Near Santa Lucia the working boats were already moving — water taxis threading under bridges, delivery barges loaded and chugging, a mahogany speedboat named Giraffa carving through a backcanal like it owned it. Venice runs on water the way everywhere else runs on roads, and in the morning you see the mechanics of it clearly. The city is a functioning place, not just a spectacle.
We headed into the backstreets of Santa Croce and Dorsoduro — away from the station, away from the tourist flow. The canals here are narrower and the palazzos more weathered, iron grillework rusting beautifully into the brickwork, the kind of decay that in Venice reads not as neglect but as age. Everything here is ancient. Everything is still standing. The water doesn’t care.
We turned a corner and found a giant crab. Just sitting there in a walled garden, claws raised, signs around it saying not to touch. No explanation visible from the street. We didn’t go in. We didn’t need to. Venice during the Biennale fills its corners with art that spills out into the city — monumental, strange, occasionally baffling — and the best response is simply to accept it and keep walking.
A tree with eyes painted on the trunk, watching the campo from behind a bench. Someone in this neighbourhood has a sense of humour. We approved.
And then: WINE IS FINE! painted in red on the corner of a shuttered building near the station, with a cartoon wine bottle for good measure. Hard to argue. We didn’t try.
Back along the Grand Canal toward Santa Lucia, the church of San Geremia rising on the opposite bank, its campanile wrapped in scaffolding. The city is always being repaired. That’s the other thing about Venice — it requires constant maintenance just to remain itself, and it does so without complaint, quietly, across centuries.
The train to Ferrara left mid-morning. We were on it. But we’d had our morning in Venice first — a short walk, a giant crab, a tree with eyes, and a city that rewards you however long you give it.
Next time: Burano and Murano. We’ve been saying that since May.
Distance: 1.59 mi · Moving time: 39:45 · Steps: 3,460 Route: Santa Lucia · Santa Croce · Dorsoduro · Grand Canal