Steve runs in Venice (well, close anyway)

This past weekend was spent in Venice, Italy. I did not actually run on the island, but ran in the mainland district of Mestre (part of greater Venice) where we stayed. Allow me to explain.

While running on the Island of Venice is technically possible, it would not be fun. First, all of the major streets are composed of a very soft surface called H2O (or water for you non-science people), duh! The walkways that people do use in the city are not very straight, they are not very wide, and there are stairs everywhere to get up and over the canals. And last, but not least, the place is packed with tourists which limits all manner of movement. So, call me a wuss if you must, but I think I picked a better option on terra-firma (mainland).

Parco San Giuliano

Anyway, I did have a good 7.5 mile run on Thursday morning at this park that was a little over 1 mile from the hotel. Mestre is a very run-friendly and bike-friendly town. The major arteries in town have walkways with both a pedestrian lane and bike lane shielded from traffic. The locals appear to use the bike paths a lot for everyday transportation. With gas prices as they are in Europe, I don't blame them!

I found the park on Google Earth before we left, but the images showed it was under construction. I knew that the images were old and the park was finished, but I still wasn't sure how to get there. The map showed a couple of very busy streets (looked like a freeway) in front of the entrance which I was worried about crossing.

So, at 6:30 am I headed out on San Marco street, following the bike path towards the park. After about 1 mile I was pleasantly surprised to see a huge pedestrian suspension bridge going over the freeway and right into the park. The bridge appeared to be double of the size of a similar bridge near my home in Greenville, SC. Sweet! At this hour on a Thursday, the park was practically deserted and I had the flat 1.5 mile loop course all to myself. There were drinking fountains about every .5 mile or so, which was also cool. I had a nice run of about 7 1/2 miles - and I can now add Italy to the list of countries I've ran in this year.

I was not able to get to the park with a camera, so you'll have to settle for a few stock internet photos showing the park and the bridge construction (which is now complete). The last photo on the right shows the back end of the course near the lagoon. You can see the bridge to the Venice island group in the background.

Be sure to click the family blog link for some cool photos of the Venice islands. Ciao!