The best approach to Venice-Chioggia-A first view-Another water approach-Padua and Fusina-The railway station-A complete transformation-A Venetian guidebook-A city of a dream.I have no doubt whatever that, if the diversion can be arranged, the perfect way for therailway traveller to approach Venice for the first time is from Chioggia, in the afternoon.Chioggia is at the end of a line from Rovigo, and it ought not to be difficult to get thereeither overnight or in the morning. If overnight, one would spend some very delightfulhours in drifting about Chioggia itself, which is a kind of foretaste of Venice, although notlike enough to her to impair the surprise. (But nothing can do that. Not all the books orphotographs in the world, not Turner, nor Whistler, nor Clara Montalba, can so familiarizethe stranger with the idea of Venice that the reality of Venice fails to be sudden andarresting. Venice is so peculiarly herself, so exotic and unbelievable, that so far from everbeing ready for her, even her residents, returning, can never be fully prepared.)But to resume-Chioggia is the end of all things. The train stops at the station becausethere is no future for it; the road to the steamer stops at the pier because otherwise itwould run into the water. Standing there, looking north, one sees nothing but the still, landlocked lagoon with red and umber and orange-sailed fishing-boats, and tiny islands hereand there. But only ten miles away, due north, is Venice. And a steamer leaves several timesa day to take you there, gently and loiteringly, in the Venetian manner, in two hours, withpauses at odd little places en route. And that is the way to enter Venice, because not only doyou approach her by sea, as is right, Venice being the bride of the sea not merely by poeticaltradition but as a solemn and wonderful fact, but you see her from afar, and gradually moreand more is disclosed, and your first near view, sudden and complete as you skirt the islandof 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 theRiva, and a gondola under your very prow