Venezia, Italy

I left Florence after a couple of nights there, and took the early morning train to Venezia... I was finally coming towards the end of my vacation and I was starting to feel really tired. As soon as I arrived in Venice, I got in line to buy my ticket to Basel. The line was so long, I figured better get it now.

Anyhow, you get out of the train station, and there you are! In a city, completely covered in water. It's pretty incredible. Again it was very easy to find the hostel, almost right across the street from the train station. Again it was very hot and humid, but there was some breeze which made walking around more bearable. Also, I really loved the old, water and moisture damaged look of the buildings... It's a place that's completely out of this world.

Everywhere you turn there's a small bridge, and in both sides there's a beatiful view to see... Streets are not too full when you get off the really touristy places (and it's pretty easy to tell when you're going in a direction that leads nowhere because there's only a few old ladies walking around with grocery bags) but I enjoyed my walks along the long stretches of sidewalks... It would have been perfect to jog in if it wasn't so hot and humid.

It took me some time to find Piazza San Marco, but I eventually did. The trick is to keep going straight if you don't see a sign that tells you which street to take. It's a beautiful Piazza, but I didn't go inside the museums at all... Again, from having been burnt out from all the sight seeing... Outside there was live music and cafes and you cannot escape the pidgeons... If you have some bread in your hands, they land on you and eat from the bread. They're quite fearless. When a table gets empty, they all fly over to it and start eating from whatever crumbs are left until a waiter slowly walks over and shoos them away. But for me, each time I see a big crowd of birds, I think of the movie "The Birds" by Hitchcock.

In Venice, there are many cute shops... But they all pretty much sell the same things. Either masks, or jewelry made of glass, or gelato... But there was one shop that had these more unique masks than the traditional "phantom of the opera" masks that you see all over... I thought it was very Trek'y...

And then there was this store... not sure if these jackets were for men or for women... the mannekens had men's faces, with strange women's bodies... so I'm not sure if the clothes were for men or for women... Took the picture really quickly so you can't see, but he/she was also wearing high-heels...

By now it's been 3 weeks since I was in Venice, so I can't remember all else that I was thinking/feeling, except being hot and tired...

However, in Venice, I had really good pizza and really good gelato, and I found them cheaper than the other cities, as well. The living accomodations were definitely more expensive, but the food I thought was cheaper.