Run Through Venice - by Steve Scherer

A Run Through Venice

By Steve Scherer

The following is a portion of a personal journal I kept during a recent trip to Venice and Florence with my wife and youngest daughter. Like many of my running friends, I find the experience of running while on vacation or business very rewarding. This was such a day and I thought I'd try to share it with others.

A quick geography lesson. For anyone not familiar with Venice, it is an improbable man-made island about a mile out into the Laguna Veneta, off the Northeast coast of Italy. Venice is roughly oval in shape and made up of six districts, with industrial areas at the extreme East and West points of the oval. Going clockwise there is Cannaregio to the North, Castello to the East, followed by San Marco and Dorsoduro to the South. In the center of the city are San Polo and Santa Croce. Each area has several large open plazas, like the well known St Mark's Square, but there are few green spaces and even fewer trees. Dissecting the city in half in a backwards "S" shape is the infamous Grand Canal, a 200 ft wide main artery where on all travel to and from Venice takes place. Other than a causeway that comes over from the mainland and ends at a huge parking garage, there are no roads or streets in the normal sense. Therefore, there are no cars, no motorscooters, and no bikes! In Venice everything takes place on foot or by boat. Streets are really just zigzagging spaces between building with hundreds of footbridges that cross a maze of small canals. It's an unreal place. This then, was the setting for one of the best running experiences of my life.

Saturday, April 14, 2001/Venice Italy

"We leave Venice today, so I'm up early at 6 a.m. Gale and Jenna are still sleeping. Because it's Saturday morning, and the day before Easter, there are no tourists and few of the throngs of Venicians, off to work, that I had seen on other early morning runs. The sun is just coming up in the East as I leave our hotel, passing a sleepy gentleman at the front desk. "Buon giorno," he calls.

Our hotel is right off St. Mark's Square, empty now, save for the pigeons and lonely sweepers with their long handled brooms. After a stretch for stiff muscles, I cross the wide expanse and duck into a narrow archway on the west face. Winding through the streets of San Marco, over the first bridge, then another, then another in quick succession. Two men in a barge are unloading vegetables for some nearby restaurant. "Crazy American" their glances say. More than my University of Arizona tee shirt gives me away. As my path opens up onto the Campo Santo Stefano (Square of St. Stefano) I turn south. I'm heading for the Accademia Bridge, one of only three bridges that cross the Grand Canal.

The bridge is a beautiful wooden structure that arches gracefully 70 feet above the water. This is the highest hill I will run this morning. At the top, I glance East to see the sun glistening off the water as I look out past Venice and the island of Lido a half mile away toward the Aegean. Down the south side of the bridge and I'm in Dorsoduro, the mostly residential portion of Venice. A quick jog to the left and I'm on a wide street going straight to the southern extreme of the city. At the water's edge, I can see another island, Guidecca, across the channel.

I turn right and run west for a half a mile. I'm surprised to look down and see that only eight minutes have passed since I left the hotel. The wide waterside street ends at an ancient fortress and I start weaving, weaving through narrow alleys and archways, across a canal or two, but not as frequently as before. At fifteen minutes I'm on the extreme western side of the island. It looks like New Jersey! Docks with ships. Train tracks. Oh, my god. There's a road! And a car is coming toward me! I head north and this part is depressing. I pass the entrance to the long causeway back to the mainland.

Within minutes, however, I make my way through the parking lot of a busy bus station. Lots of odd stares as I go by, and just like that, over a canal and I'm back into the narrow meandering passageways of the central district of San Polo. Street signs are confusing. Often I make wrong turns and come into small courtyards with no exits. Backtracking, I'm seeking the way east to the beautiful Rialto Bridge, the second of the Grand Canal bridges and the geographic center of Venice. Often I'm lost. At one bridge I pause to ask an old woman, "Mi scusi, senorina, per Rialto?". She points in the opposite direction and smiles! "Grazie". "Prago". Stupid American.

I am having so much fun! Eventually, through the various "Per Rialto" signs on the sides of buildings I make it to the bridge. This area is bustling because the West Side of the bridge is the fresh produce market o f the city. The smells, the busy sellers and the early morning shoppers fill the senses. The sun is brighter now as I bound up the steep, ancient steps of the Rialto Bridge, with its still closed shops built right on it's sides. Down the other side, careful not to trip as I take steps three at a time, and I reenter San Marco.

At the first major street, I bend northwest, ever keeping the Grand Canal in sight to my left at cross streets. Now heading down the wide Strada Nova, I've now entered the northernmost Cannaregio district. Shops fill both sides of the street and still closed market stales it's center. More people are up, walking their dogs, sweeping out their storefronts. Bearing right at the Rio Terra San Leonardo, I'm soon back where the three of us had lunch on Friday, after our visit to the old Jewish Ghetto islet a few blocks away.

Now heading southwest, I cross the Canale Regio (Royal Canal) where the district gets its name. In another few minutes, I reach the train station on the western extreme of the Grand Canal and I cross the third of the canal's three bridges, the Scalzi Bridge.

Now, 50 minutes into my run, I've entered the Santa Croce district, and like before, playing "Find the Rialto Bridge"! Zigzagging east, through a maze of streets and alleyways where two people can barely pass, another eight minutes and I'm through the produce market and over the Rialto bridge for the second time. The smile is growing ever wider on my face. This is an incredible run!

This time I head straight east after crossing the bridge and crossing San Marco, meander though the streets and countless bridges of this most crowded area of the city. I'm skirting the edges of the Castello district, but soon sense that I should bare southwest making again for St. Mark's Square. I don't know it coming until I suddenly round a corner and the square opens in front of me. My watch says 1:06. Turning south, I cross in front of the gigantic St. Mark's Cathedral, on past the Dogie's Palace to the city's edge. The 100-foot wide Riva Degli Schiavoni runs along the sea here, with it's frequent bridges of side canals, huge hotels, water bus stops and hundreds of boats and gondolas in their moorings. This has been my familiar route on other mornings in Venice and in a mile; I'm to the easternmost extreme of Castello. I turn around and retrace my steps to St. Mark's Square, but this is too good to end!

At the Dogie's Palace, I turn right and run under the base of the Campanile. This 323 ft high tower is the tallest structure in Venice. Built in 1609, I can't believe that it collapsed in 1902 and was rebuilt. I cross the square now a third time, exiting through the same archway as at my beginning this morning. Down the same San Marco streets and over the Accademia Bridge once more. God, is this a rush or what?

This time, on the Dorsoduro side I turn left heading east. Now after 7 am, the streets are less deserted. I make my way over canals and through narrow passages to the huge Santa Maria Del Salute church on the easternmost point of Dorsoduro. I can see St. Mark's across the water to my right a quarter mile away. Harry's Bar, where Earnest Hemingway drank away his evenings, is across the Grand Canal for where I am running. Around the church, weaving to the southwest, I'm looking for the southern shore again. At the water's edge, I run west for half a mile than turn north, up to the Accademia Bridge for a last wonderful time.

Over the bridge and back into San Marco, I'm retracing my earlier steps, heading east. I'm in a full runner's high by now. I'm tired but full of energy. Knowing that the finish is less that half a mile ahead of me, I pick up my pace, now blowing by surprised pedestrians in this up-scale-shopping district. Beaming ear to ear, I burst through the archway onto St. Mark's Square, startling a strolling Policeman. My watch says 1:39 and I've just completed one of the most enjoyable, effortless and memorable runs of my life! I'll never forget it!