Teolo – Venice: 64km

The morning sun pierces shyly through the thick forest of the mountain I illegally found a place to set my tent up yesterday. The dew obstructs the sun’s fierceness I’ve felt the last couple of days. It has soaked my tent too. Today’s goal; arrive in Venice. Since leaving Hans at Lake Garda, I’ve spent a night in Verona at a beautiful campsite overlooking the city. On my way there I passed some of the same villages I’ve past with my friends two years ago. I see us walking over the squares and sitting on the seaside terraces in my memories; beautiful scenes of a trip in which everything simply just felt right.

Back to the present. I’ve lost my reusable cotton coffee filters somewhere along the way. Maybe they’re somewhere deep in one of the bags within my bags. This morning they’re untraceable. I offer up one of my single-use face masks and use it as a filter. It’s probably not the most hygienic thing to do, but it works remarkably well. Having had my face-mask-coffee, a banana and an energy bar, I set out for the nearly sunken city, where I booked a camping for two nights on one of the nearby islands.

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The roads are cyclist friendly, but the traffic increases as I get closer to Venice. I arrive in the early afternoon, have my obligatory Aperol Spritz, and get the ferry to the island with the campsite on it. At least, I try to. I learn pretty soon that there’s no ferry that allows for bicycles. “You can leave it here in storage”, the tourist information officer advices. Not an option. New plan, different ferry, different camping, all good.

Venice, or at least its tourism, is a paradox to me. The masses of people destroy the experience, and destroy Venice quite literally. The waves from the cruise ships eat away at the walls, the stones in the streets are eroded to spheres, and the steps of the famous bridges are being hollowed out by trolleys. On the other hand, I think it’s pretty cool that so many people recognise the city’s history and beauty that they take the time and money to see it. It’s a stark contrast though, the stalls full of selfie sticks and ‘funny’ posters of The Mona Lisa ‘dabbing’, or the Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man with a huge penis, in front of the Basilica’s and Palazzo’s. It oftentimes reminds me of Amsterdam. The water, tourism, architecture, history and the tailoring to tourists.

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I decide not to wait in the long lines for the museums, and wander around instead. It’s basically a museum outside too. I marvel at the buildings, of which every corner seems to be designed, engraved or to have a statue stuck on- or chiselled out of it. I try to imagine what it took to build a city like this. Madness. A statement of wealth and power, the Dubai of a couple of centuries ago. Walking around, Venice presents me with neighbourhoods that are outside of the tourist stomping ground, and seem almost, somewhat, liveable. Locals, for as far I can tell – I know their rarity – enjoy the bar’s terraces. I even cross a school. Night falls and Venice transforms into a paradise of lights, illuminating the tiny corridors and huge palaces. I meet up with a French couple I met on the camping in one of these ‘local’ bars. I get lost in the winding streets and the beauty, and arrive 30 minutes too late. Luckily, they had the same problem. We drink a couple of wines next to one of the many waterways, on which gondoliers tenderly push the water away to make room for their boats. I’m sitting right here but the city feels unreal, like a fairy tale backdrop came to life.