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
the rush over the viaduct in the train. One is behaving with more
propriety than that, for one is doing what, until a few poor decades ago
of scientific fuss, every visitor travelling to Venice had to do: one is
embarked on the most romantic of voyages: one is crossing the sea to its
Queen.

This way one enters Venice by her mercantile shipping gate, where there
are chimneys and factories and a vast system of electric wires. Not that
the scene is not beautiful; Venice can no more fail to be beautiful,
whatever she does, than a Persian kitten can; yet it does not compare
with the Chioggia adventure, which not only is perfect visually, but,
though brief, is long enough to create a mood of repose for the
anticipatory traveller such as Venice deserves.

On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that there are many visitors
who want their first impression of this city of their dreams to be
abrupt; who want the transition from the rattle of the train to the
peace of the gondola to be instantaneous; and these, of course, must
enter Venice at the statio