Summer Venice

Venice is one of my favorite cities to visit. Sure, it is old and it is beautiful. But it also has one unique property that gets me every time — there are no cars here! Everything has to be done via boat or walking. Two things I happen to love.

So with a few friends we decided to spend a week in Venice working remotely, seeing what the city feels like when you can't just play tourist all day. Mid-July heat meant most exploring happened in the cooler evenings.

But working remotely from Venice had its challenges. Sure, there were the usual internet issues. But the real productivity killer? You simply cannot leave a restaurant without having a glass (or two) of wine - the owners insist!

Venice is quite popular, maybe too popular. Main streets are crowded, it is sometimes hard to walk, not mentioning taking a good photo. But I followed couple of generic tips how to make it more bearable:

• Get up early. That's of course easier said than done, but the reality is most of the tourists are asleep at 6 o'clock and seeing empty San Marco piazza is worth getting up early

• Go off the beaten path. Another classic advice — but in the case of Venice you're gonna see unique daily life on the canals: how the ambulance works on the water, how people do constructions with boats, how garbage is collected and even to see small grocery shops.

Highlights

My first real highlight was trying to run in Venice. The medieval maze seemed impossible to navigate, and GPS was useless in those narrow streets. But getting lost became the point - turning at a random bridge, following the sun toward the quieter edges, discovering hidden churches and seeing how boats get refueled.

Another day, after picking up pasta at Bepe Bigoi, we headed to the closed Realto market. It was late in the evening, not many people on the port, only whispering waves touching marble walls. While eating pasta and looking glowing windows on the other side we started to have a long discussion what it would like to be born and grow up in Venice with all it's cultural and historical heritage and uniqueness. Do locals feel that their town is becoming an attraction? Do the young people want to leave it and never return? What if they won't see anything more beautiful? Or if their beauty senses work differently now? Only few thousands locals still live here. And Venice is slowly sinking - maybe one day it will become legend, like Atlantis, and no one will have to leave because there'll be nowhere to return to.

A bit afraid of getting into tourist trap we bought tickets to Vivaldi's concert at Chiesa di San Vidal. But the performance was flawless and church provided fantastic acoustics. And for me personally it was a nice throwback to my teenage years, when I discovered classical music with Vivaldi. Back in the days I couldn't have imagined visiting Venice, in the very city that was Vivaldi's creative home for most of his life.

Another cultural experience was Punta della Dogana art gallery with Bruce Nauman's "For Children" installation — basically the whole tour from speakers we heard "for children" every few minutes. It become a meme in our company for some years.

Visiting the sea. We hopped on a Vaporetto and, in half an hour, moored at Lido — an island with connection to the sea. The beach wasn't particularly impressive, but it was nice to feel the contrast with the bustling, narrow streets of Venice. The long, almost infinite stretch of sand, dancing with the wind — a refreshing change. It was one of the final days of workation, so standing on that beach a bit of melancholic satisfaction — like when you're on the last pages of a good book.

Recommendations

• Torrefazione Cannaregio — coffee place
• La Zucca — Venetian restaurant with vegetarian leaning
• Harry's Bar — this one is a bit crowded, but interesting "old" era bar where Bellini cocktail was invented
• Take at least once a ferry from the airport — it is more expensive but faster and cooler than a bus