April 2016
The heart of Venice is the Grand Canal. The vaporettors (water bus) and water taxis will get you from one end of Venice to the other. The average depth of the canal is about 5 meters. The canals are inter connected by bridges and if you have strong legs, you could walk from Santa Lucia train station right up to St Mark’s square. Most famous of the bridges over the grand canal is the Rialto Bridge. As of April 2016, the Rialto is still under renovation and sadly you won’t be able to photograph or selfie yourself on the bridge.

A vaporetto passing under the Rialto bridge. The bridge is under renovation and the facade of the bridge you see is actually a painted canvas of the bridge itself.
At the Rialto, the water way is busy during most of the day and it is amazing how these vaporettos avoid each other as well as other boats as they zig-zag from one side of the canal to the other to serve their stops. The gondolas will also use a fair portion of the Grand Canal for its route. There are commercial boats transporting goods as well as private boats too. I can safely say this as a ‘controlled chaos’.