No stones are so trite as those of Venice, that is, precisely, so well worn. It has been part museum, part amusement park, living off the entrance fees of tourists, ever since the early eighteenth century, when its former sources of revenue ran dry. Mary McCarthy, Venice Observed
The Venetian apartment is attractive, comfortable and quiet. The building is old but its interior renovated. It has its oddities: so many lights and light switches (6 in the bathroom alone, plus a switch/dial thingy we never figured out) yet it's not very light even with all the lights turned on. Credit the small windows which is what windows looked like in olden days, when the building was built, and small windows it will be for ever since the exteriors of buildings in Venice can't be modernized. It would be akin to giving Mona Lisa a nose job.
The apartment fronts a small plaza with a statue and a cafe. On one side is a busy, touristy street, but the other side is not touristy at all. We usually go the non touristy way. You can get to the same places, it just takes a little longer. We often walk to the water, with its views of Cimiterio di San Michele and, further away, Murano, then walk towards the hospital, passing a series of boat slips, a few vaporetto stops, and a few cafes, then we head south and cut into the island. The hospital has a dock for boat ambulances, barriers they can drop for privacy when they transfer a patient from boat to emergency, and a long row of bright yellow ambulance boats. It's just like on land, yet it's not.
