How many times have we been to Venice?
Let’s see.
We’ve been to Stockholm, the Venice of the North. Well, one of the cities with this nickname. The city is built on 14 islands and 30 per cent of its area is water. Stockholm is the largest of several cities and towns on the Stockholm archipeligo. This archipelago is the largest in Sweden, the second largest on the Baltic Sea and is made up of some 30,000 islands and islets. In addition to canals, Stockholm has a great public transit system. Their underground, built in 1950, is known for its decorated stations and is often referred to as the longest art gallery in the world.
We took two canal tours in Stokholm. The first was more a dinner cruise — an all the shrimp you can eat dinner cruise. The lights on the water were stunning and they weren’t just whistling Dixie. I can’t begin to guess how much shrimp was consumed on that canal cruise. Our bowl was so big, the two of us couldn’t finish it all. Other tables had two or three bowls. The shrimp just kept coming out of the kitchen. Desssert was pretty good too, as was the espresso.
The second cruise was a daytime trip and and was wonderful. But silly me, I’m the one with the pen fetish, I’m the one who keeps notes and remembers things, and we — I — headed out on this two hour trip neither pen nor notebook. We saw examples of several generations of Swedish architecture, and passed through a couple of locks. It was amazing and beautiful.
Then there’s Copenhagen. Also known as the Venice of the north. In the 17th century, impressed with Amsterdam, King Christian IV hired Dutch architects to build canals inside Copenhagen’s ramparts. Today, these canals branch off the central Christianshavn Canal and are lined with pleasure boats and houseboats.
I’m a prairie girl, living in a landlocked part of the country. I’ve lived in cities without a river. So…yes, we did a canal cruise here too and marvelled at the beauty. And I had my notebook and pen along and learned all sorts of details about the city.
One of the city’s stunning sights is a Our Saviour’s Church. It’s beautiful with a spiral spire is visible from almost everywhere in the city. You can climb the 400 odd stairs to the top for the view if you like. (Ken feels abut heights the way I feel about venomous snakes, so no we didn’t climb to the top.)
One canal we didn’t cruise by but did walk by had a big sign for boaters that said “Proceed with caution — sculpture under water Merman and Seven Sons.” Sure enough, there was a huge sculpture under the water. You wouldn’t want your boat scraping along the top of that particular water feature. In addition to canals, Copenhagen has bicycle trails — 40 per cent of workers commuting to work on 400 kilometres of bicycle paths and lanes.
We went to Amsterdam which is called, you guessed it, the Venice of the north, because it is built on 90 islands linked by 1281 bridges (three times more bridges than Venice). It has three main canals which are navigable by boat, as well as the Singel which was originally a U-shaped moat around the city and which now forms the inner most ring of waterways. In total, there are 165 canals with a total distance of more than 100 kilometres.
Amsterdam celebrated the 400th anniversary of canals in the city last year (2013); the canal ring became part of the UNESCO world heritage listing in 2010. Many of Amsterdam’s buildings are set on a foundation of pilings…the most famous of these are the dancing houses, a series of five houses, built for wealthy bankers and merchants that tilt and lean precariously (Leaning Tower of Pisa has nothing on these buildings). The land they were built on was so swampy they were built on stilts and wobbled and tilted. There are 2500 houseboats in Amsterdam. We went on canal tours here too. We didn’t pick a very good one and they barely gave us any information at all besides “here’s Anne Frank’s house”, but the dinner cruise we went on was amazing. It was on this dinner cruise we saw the dancing houses and found the park that is home to Amsterdam’s holocaust memorial.
Bruges, Belgium is another canal-based community, known as the Venice of the North. Along with museums celebrating french fries and chocolate, Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child Bruges has canals and bridges. I can’t find a count of canal numbers and distances, but the city is surrounded by them, with smaller canals branching into the city. And when you take a canal ride, you get into the back areas of the city that the sidewalks don’t take you. The voyeur in me loved this aspect of the cruise.
Even Boston is compared to Venice. The city has been sinking at the rate of a tenth of an inch a year, over the last 50 years annual rainfall increased by two inches a decade, plus climate change is increasing water levels. In the 1970s engineers believed that water levels would rise by seven inches over 100 years. Now, according to the National Climate Assessment water levels will rise by six feet by 2100 effectively submerging the Back Bay Area which is built largely on reclaimed land already.
The part of Colmar in Alsace once housing butchers, tanners and fishmongers is crossed by canals of the river Lauch and is thus known as Little Venice. The indoor market is on a canal and deliveries all still come by boat so receiving areas are on the canals and at water level. Colmar like the rest of Alsace passed back and forth between France and Germany over the last 800 years and its architecture reflects that very split personality. I am not sure why it has to depend on a comparison with Venice — it’s beautifully it’s own merits.
Even Manchester, England gets this monicker, although my visit there was brief and by car so I can’t speak to their canals, or their reason for being identified with Venice.
Last year, when we visited Cathar country in France, we went to Sete which is known as the Venice of the Langdoc. It was a beautiful city and the grand canal was splendid, no question, but it was no Venice.
We’ve been to these “Venice of the….” Other cities may have more canals, more bridges, more kilometres of water passages than Venice. By the numbers, Venice is behind these other cities. She has only 200 canals with 400 bridges connecting 100 islands. But Venice has no roads at all, no vehicles, parkades, traffic lights, rush hours with traffic jams. Venice is canals and bridges. Its only traffic is on the water. Police patrol on jet skis! And only the Grand Canal has motor boat traffic. You leave your car outside the city. Streets and sidewalks are a block or two long and end in a bridge or a canal or a dead end. No noise pollution, no exhaust fumes, no pedestrians dodging in and out of traffic trying to cross the streets. They don’t even have to dodge bicycles.
Ahh Venice. When all is said and done, there’s only one.
I had intended to include various photos with this, but the very iffy WIFI, even with a SIM card is not cooperating. So perhaps later.
