Venice Bridges

Our bridge - with Mary checking
out the views!

Now, you can’t have a bunch of islands interconnected without bridges, LOTS of bridges. There are literally hundreds of bridges here, from very tiny bridges, to huge bridges spanning the Grand Canal. The infinite variety is amazing – brick is the primary building material but the myriad of ways they put them together gives you a never ending variety of different bridges. Sadly, even though they were all different, I still spent the majority of my time being lost and positive that all the bridges, or at least that the majority, looked alike.

The "modern" Constitution Bridge

The major bridges over the Grand Canal were a bit easier to identify. The Rialto bridge had stores (the spendy ones, of course) that lined the span across the water. They did keep the stores in the center, allowing for space for gawkers to photograph the never ending scenes on the water. The Constitution Bridge was spectacular with its steel construction of great red tubes holding up the concrete and glass walkway.  Acadamia Bridge was a large, wooden bridge that connected some of the college and other institutions on the island.

With laundry, of course

Metal worked bridge

The smaller, nameless bridges were harder to identify. They connected the hundreds of little islands, the meandering streets, the homes and businesses that abound on this tiny community. Some of them were really not very high at all – the drivers of the boats had to duck WAY down to get under!

We found one area where a group of 5 bridges came together. There was one major "post" in the center with the various bridges fanning out to take you across the main canal or one of the smaller side ones. Reminded us of the many bridges over roads in Japan.