A quiet Sunday lunch in Venice

A travel piece based on my one day trip to Venice. Written by Slawka G. Scarso. First published in The Traveler - July 2004

INCIPIT
When I decided to go to Venice on a Sunday outing just after Christmas, I thought I was doomed to be squashed by other tourists on tiny bridges, to hang onto a vaporetto (the ferry-bus that takes you from one end of town to the other) with my feet dragging in the Canal Grande waters, to share a one-way raised walkway put during winter floods with hundreds of people and their cumbersome luggage. Still, I was determined to do it. I must say that my first impression as I got out of the station was a little claustrophobic; not so much for the number of people as for that of stalls selling scarves, gondolier style striped T-shirts and Carnival masks that looked everything but hand made in Venice.
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