Venice at last!!!! after all these years of dreaming about it. We're glad we didn't bash the 500nm up the Adriatic just to sail into here, as it would have been very difficult to bring a yacht here. Everything - fire trucks, ambulance, delivery trucks, buses, taxis, construction equipment, I mean everything including the ubiquitous tourist gondolas - navigate the canals. And it is total chaos, but somehow it works and has been getting on for all these centuries. Arriving by train on one end and navigating the narrow alleys to find our hotel in the middle of the city was quite the adventure in itself. GPS doesn't work so well with all the masonry construction and narrow alleys. 
The history of Venice goes back way more than a millennial, first as traders on the rivers of northern Italy, then gradually expanding into the sea. While most communities expanded their influence by acquiring more land, the Venetians expanded by acquiring trading rights on the water, first in the northern Adriatic, then ever expanding further into Med, into the Atlantic and even over land. They weren't so interested in acquiring possessions as to defeating piracy and maintaining and developing fair trade. To this as well as being known as excellent seafarers and warriors, as well as craftsmen, they became very famous.
Among the many cities that have ever been made, Venice stands out as a symbol of beauty, of wise government, and of communally controlled capitalism. The distinctiveness of the environment in which the Venetians built gave an obviously unique quality to their city's charm. It's watery setting contributed also to an aristocratic tradition of liberty. Venice was the freest of Italy's many cities. It had no city walls but a lagoon, no palace guard except workers from its chief shipyard, no parade ground for military drill and display except the sea. The advantages of its site fostered also an economy which combined liberty and regulation in ways as unique as Venice's urban arteries and architecture.
The institutions which make Venice memorable evolved during many hundred years of effort. From the 6th century AD to the end of the 18th, the Venetians were a separate people. In terms of their livelihood, those 12 centuries divide into three major periods which overlap considerably and are each about 400 years long. Until about 1000 AD, the Venetians were primarily boatmen or barge men operating small craft across their lagoons and up and down the rivers and canals leading into the mainland of northern Italy. After 1000 AD, they became a seagoing nation, sailing, trading and fishing in many parts of the Med and from the rivers of southern Russia to the English Channel. Finally, Venice became a city of Craftsmen, functionaries, and a few aristocrats, a city renowned for its skill in handwork, finance, and government.
At the beginning of modern times most medieval communities the size of Venice were overwhelmed by the rise of large, strongly organized monarchies. Oceanic trade routes undermined traditional sources of prosperity. But Venice, however, perfected her distinctive republican institutions as a city-state, preserved her independence by diplomatic skill, and prolonged her prosperity by adjusting her trade and especially her manufacturing to new opportunities offered by an expanding Europe. By 1600, when Venice was less a nation of seamen than of craftsmen, she reached a high peak of influence as a centre of artistic creation.
To this day, the charm and magnificence that has always been Venice, is still alive and well. Three days to explore this lovely city is no where near enough time and we hope to come back for a much longer spell, off season of course.
So that's the news from EQ, where the seas are flat, the winds fair and the crew content to finally see a dream in real life. Venice is certainly a dreamy city.
With equanimity and Joy...
