Gondolas are fun, little, black, slim boats that rock and tilt. People on the street draw you in for ride. A ride can cost a lot of money if you don’t negotiate a price.
Gondoliers still ferry visitors along Venetian waters, as they have for a very long time. The Gondola was created about 200 years ago when the King wanted a nice boat that would let him travel smoothly around the canals of Venice. This is my experience.
On the morning of our ride we first walked to a local laundromat to get the washing done. We had found the laundromat the night before after a scary walk through dark alleyways with very few people. It was much less scary in the day time.
Once the washing was done we walked back to a place where we had seen the Gondoliers trying to get business. Mum negotiated a good price and we were able to go on a ride straight away.
We took our clean washing on to the gondola with us. When I told Nanny about this later she said this was a very Venetian thing to do.
We boarded the magnificent black boat carefully as it tipped over a bit when we stepped on. After we were all sitting down the Gondolier walked along the side of the gondola to get to the back. He has pretty good balance.
Our ride went for 30 minutes. It was so amazing and the water was so smooth and peaceful, except when a speedboat came past. The waves from the boat made us ride high in the water.
The gondolier called out as we got close to each corner. We got to see all sorts of buildings and could not understand how people lived in the houses when the water comes in their back door. Mum says that the people move up a floor in the building.
As we got close to the finish we entered a gondola traffic jam. Our gondolier was very good though and he got us through.
