Before we got to venice we already had the first line of our blog entry written:
"Venice is a rotting stinking carcasse of its former glory."
Luckily for us, we changed our minds about Venice. Although it is filled to the brim with tourists, the city itself is really spectacular. A few things about it first, though. It is extremely humid every day. The heat of Italy hasn't been too bad so far, but when it is combined with the Venetian humidity, it becomes really unbearable. Every day in Venice we have had to find a cool air-conditioned church or museum to be in between 2 - 4 in the afternoon due to the extreme heat and humidity. Venice doesn't have as many canals as we imagined. There are actually pedestrian streets there like in a normal town. You can never be more than about 5 minutes from a canal, though, and boats are the best transportation around.
We spent nearly a week in Venice and about on the third day, we discovered a little restaurant on a quiet corner somewhere away from St. Mark's Square. We ate there 3 nights in a row because of the quality of the food, the size of the portions, and the cheapness of the bill. The last night we were there, they gave us 2 glasses of champagne on the house as soon as we sat down. It was very awkward trying to tell the waiter thanks but no thanks. He wasn't offended though; he got to drink 2 free glasses of champagne in the back room.
St. Mark's Square is the big sight in Venice, and from dawn to dusk it is filled with people and pigeons. It also happens to be the lowest spot in Venice which, by the way, floods about 100 times a year. One evening as we were walking across the square, we noticed that the area in front of St. Mark's Cathedral was under about 4 inches of water. It was fun to see a little flood in Venice.
We were walking down some old alley one evening when Daniel stopped to fix his belt and just when we were least expecting it, an old Venetian man jumped out and went "BOO!" right in front of us. We both jumped and he pointed and laughed and shook our hands and spoke to us in Italian for a few minutes. We mostly just nodded our heads and smiled. The next day, we saw him again on the Rialto Bridge and this time, we surprised him. We had another laugh with him. It was so weird. He just lives to surprise tourists. It's probably the only joy he has anymore because he was pretty old and retired. He was so funny.
Everything you have heard about Venice it true. There is no need to exaggerate because the whole city is like one big tall tale. We were worried we would get bored after 2 or 3 days and we made plans to visit Salzburg or Munich if we didn't like Venice but we decided that we would reather spend all the time that we had in Venice. It is a wonderful, if a little warm, place.
"Venice is a rotting stinking carcasse of its former glory."
Luckily for us, we changed our minds about Venice. Although it is filled to the brim with tourists, the city itself is really spectacular. A few things about it first, though. It is extremely humid every day. The heat of Italy hasn't been too bad so far, but when it is combined with the Venetian humidity, it becomes really unbearable. Every day in Venice we have had to find a cool air-conditioned church or museum to be in between 2 - 4 in the afternoon due to the extreme heat and humidity. Venice doesn't have as many canals as we imagined. There are actually pedestrian streets there like in a normal town. You can never be more than about 5 minutes from a canal, though, and boats are the best transportation around.
We spent nearly a week in Venice and about on the third day, we discovered a little restaurant on a quiet corner somewhere away from St. Mark's Square. We ate there 3 nights in a row because of the quality of the food, the size of the portions, and the cheapness of the bill. The last night we were there, they gave us 2 glasses of champagne on the house as soon as we sat down. It was very awkward trying to tell the waiter thanks but no thanks. He wasn't offended though; he got to drink 2 free glasses of champagne in the back room.
St. Mark's Square is the big sight in Venice, and from dawn to dusk it is filled with people and pigeons. It also happens to be the lowest spot in Venice which, by the way, floods about 100 times a year. One evening as we were walking across the square, we noticed that the area in front of St. Mark's Cathedral was under about 4 inches of water. It was fun to see a little flood in Venice.
We were walking down some old alley one evening when Daniel stopped to fix his belt and just when we were least expecting it, an old Venetian man jumped out and went "BOO!" right in front of us. We both jumped and he pointed and laughed and shook our hands and spoke to us in Italian for a few minutes. We mostly just nodded our heads and smiled. The next day, we saw him again on the Rialto Bridge and this time, we surprised him. We had another laugh with him. It was so weird. He just lives to surprise tourists. It's probably the only joy he has anymore because he was pretty old and retired. He was so funny.
Everything you have heard about Venice it true. There is no need to exaggerate because the whole city is like one big tall tale. We were worried we would get bored after 2 or 3 days and we made plans to visit Salzburg or Munich if we didn't like Venice but we decided that we would reather spend all the time that we had in Venice. It is a wonderful, if a little warm, place.
1 comment:
Your pictures and trip are amazing!!!!! I look forward to reading more!
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