There are still a few solutions, starting with getting off the treadmill that leads to and from St Mark's Square. We're staying at a lovely little canal-side apartment in Dorsoduro, well off the beaten track and an easy walk to the Guggenheim and Accademia Museums which sit a large canal away and past which few tourists bother to travel. One can also still get lost in tiny lanes away from the masses or move about either very early or very late. The charms are still there; you just gotta work a little bit harder.
Meanwhile, back on the tourist trail, traveling becomes further complicated by the influx of aggressive vendors, all of whom block walkways and basically sell the same handbag knock-offs, shelf pickers or neon-like wind up helicopters.
Since most of them seem to be African immigrants, my best guess is they're all working for a syndicate who plunks them down all over the city and then generously allows them to stay in massively over-crowded small apartments on the mainland. A sad state for vendors, tourists and locals and the only winners are the few that control the sales and the few that are paid off to continue to allow them. As one site notes: Street vendors obtain their bags through middlemen and there's no way of knowing who those middlemen are (e.g. The Mafia). So, hey, maybe the bags are real after all and just fell off some trucks.
It hasn't all been bad. Landlord recommended a nice little trat nearby that always seems to be jammed with locals and the occasional TripAdvisor devotee. Good food at local's prices (Taverna San Travaso), though we're getting burned out on Italian and just decided to make some salads for today and tomorrow and hopefully drop some of the pounds we've been packing on during a dozen straight days of eating out. Just spent 3 hours wandering around, mostly off the beaten path and just soaking in what's left of the local culture. Attending an opera so had to find something a tad more appropriate than a t-shirt (not an easy task in a town where wafer-thin polo shirts from Bangladesh sell for triple what you'd pay at home). Got lucky and found an H&M with a good selection of nice tops. So let's see, I'm in Italy, went to a Swedish chain and bought a flashy Bangladeshi sweater.
The opera (La Traviata) was held in an old 15th century palace, much like operas were presented long ago when folks would invite friends to their palaces for some evening entertainment. The palace was delightfully ramshackle, with floors, ceilings and doors going in different directions, but one could still see its former elegance. The opera was surprisingly good, with three singers and a 4 piece chamber orchestra. At one point, the heroine, Violetta, handed me a glass of champagne. Now that's the kind of audience-performer interaction I like! The opera moved through three acts in three different rooms in the palace. Cool way to spend an evening.
Our charming canalside place turned not so charming the last two nights as a result of thoughtless other guests who noisily awoke at 5:45, then 3:45 AM. Our final day was to be a day of island hopping and Grand Canal viewing from a vaporetto (water bus), but we managed only a trip to the touristy glass-blowing island of Murano. All in all, I was pleased to get out of Venice and catch a 2.5 hour train to Milan.
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