Standing there, looking north, one sees nothing but the still,
land-locked lagoon with red and umber and orange-sailed fishing-boats,
and tiny islands here and there. But only ten miles away, due north, is
Venice. And a steamer leaves several times a day to take you there,
gently and loiteringly, in the Venetian manner, in two hours, with
pauses at odd little places _en route_. And that is the way to enter
Venice, because not only do you approach her by sea, as is right, Venice
being the bride of the sea not merely by poetical tradition but as a
solemn and wonderful fact, but you see her from afar, and gradually more
and more is disclosed, and your first near view, sudden and complete as
you skirt the island of S. Giorgio Maggiore, has all the most desired
ingredients: the Campanile of S. Marco, S. Marco's domes, the Doges'
Palace, S. Theodore on one column and the Lion on the other, the Custom
House, S. Maria della Salute, the blue Merceria clock, all the business
of the Riva, and a gondola under your very prow.

That is why one should come to Venice from Chioggia.

The other sea approach is from Fusina, at the end of an electric-tram
line from Padua. If the Chioggia scheme is too difficult, then the
Fusina route should be taken, for it is simplicity itself. All that the
traveller has to do is to leave the train at Padua overnight--and he
will be very glad to do so, for that last five-hour lap from Milan to
Venice is very trying, with all the disentanglement of registered
luggage at the end of it before one can get to the hotel--and spend the
next morning in exploring Padua's own riches: Giotto's frescoes in the
Madonna dell'Arena; Mantegna's in the Eremitani; Donatello's altar in
the church of Padua's own sweet Saint Anthony; and so forth; and then
in the afternoon take the tram for Fusina. This approach is not so
attractive as that from Chioggia, but it is more quiet and fitting than