ITALY - Best of Europe 2014 - page 1064

The Grand Canal Cruise Begins
This tour starts at the Ferrovia vaporetto stop (at Santa Lucia train station). It also works if
you board upstream from Ferrovia at Piazzale Roma, a short walk from Ferrovia over the
Calatrava Bridge. Just start the tour when your vaporetto reaches Ferrovia.
Ferrovia: The SantaLuciatrainstation, oneofthefewmodernbuildingsintown,was
built in 1954. It's been the gateway into Venice since 1860, when the first station was built.
“F.S.” stands for “Ferrovie dello Stato,” the Italian state railway system.
More than 20,000 people a day commute in from the mainland, making this the busiest
part of Venice during rush hour. The Calatrava Bridge, spanning the Grand Canal between
thetrainstationandPiazzale Romaupstream,wasbuiltin2008toalleviate someofthecon-
gestion and make the commute easier (see here ) .
Opposite the train station, atop the green dome of San Simeon Piccolo church, St.
Simeon waves ciao to whoever enters or leaves the “old” city. The pink church with the
white Carrara-marble facade, just beyond the train station, is the Church of the Scalzi
(Church of the Barefoot, named after the shoeless Carmelite monks), where the last doge
(Venetian ruler) rests. It looks relatively new because it was partially rebuilt after being
bombed in 1915 by Austrians aiming (poorly) at the train station.
Riva de Biasio: Venice's main thoroughfare is busy with all kinds of boats: taxis,
police boats, garbage boats, ambulances, construction cranes, and even brown-and-white
UPS boats. Somehow they all manage to share the canal in relative peace.
About25yardspasttheRivadeBiasiostop,you'lllookleftdownthebroad Cannaregio
Canal to see what was the Jewish Ghetto (described on here ) . The twin, pale-pink, eight-
story “skyscrapers”—the tallest buildings you'll see at this end of the canal—are reminders
of how densely populated the world's original ghetto was. Set aside as the local Jewish
quarter in 1516, this area became extremely crowded. This urban island developed into one
ofthe most closely knit business and cultural quarters ofall the Jewish communities in Italy,
and gave us our word “ghetto” (from geto, the copper foundry located here).
SanMarcuola: Atthisstop,facingatinysquarejustahead,standstheunfinishedchurch
of San Marcuola, one of only five churches fronting the Grand Canal. Centuries ago, this
canal was a commercial drag of expensive real estate in high demand by wealthy merchants.
About 20 yards ahead on the right stands the stately gray Turkish “Fondaco” Exchange,
one of the oldest houses in Venice. Its horseshoe arches and roofline of triangles and dingle-
balls are reminders of its Byzantine heritage. Turkish traders in turbans docked here, un-
loaded their goods into the warehouse on the bottom story, then went upstairs for a home-
stylemealandaplacetosleep.Veniceinthe1500swasverycosmopolitan,welcomingevery
religion and ethnicity, so long as they carried cash. (Today the building contains the city's
Museum of Natural History—and Venice's only dinosaur skeleton.)