Canal Madness

Venice is by far one of my favourite cities. It is both majestic and modest without even trying. It is just one of those cities that speaks to you. Well, it spoke to me. The pictures don't even come close to doing it justice, but my love of Venice may also stem from the three awesome people I got to know a bit while I was there. 

I don't know if any of you have been to Venice, but I think it should be on everyone's must see list because c'mon people, it is sinking into the water. I mean it is literally slowly sinking into the water and eventually the city will be overrun by water and then after that it could be on the bottom of the see. Besides the fact that the city is sinking, Venice is a city that you can easily get lost in. One may think this is not a draw, but they would be completely wrong. Seriously, they are completely and utterly wrong. In most cases, that way of thinking is best, but in regards to Venice, you can be completely lost and utterly safe. Plus it is easy enough to find your way home once you learn a few key landmarks (or would you call them watermarks?). I mean there are so many canals and alleyways that it can be tricky, but once you figure out the general direction you need to go in, you are golden. 

Alright enough of the text and onto my story and the pictures! After Roma (during my Easter Break), I got into Venice by train and followed the directions my hostel provided to find them. I walked past the hostel twice until a man working there came and got me. Once I checked in, I stared tentatively at the complex looking map before I headed out to get myself ridiculously lost. Right outside my hostel was the Grand Canal and Campiello San Geremia (pictured at right).

I eventually found myself at a supermarket and decided to buy myself some food since it was almost dinner time. I headed back to my hostel and made my simple dinner of bread, mozzarella, and parma ham. As I ate my dinner at the dining table, I was joined by a couple of Australians. We got to talking and hit it off really well. After we had finished eating, we discussed what we wanted to see in Venice and decided to take a walk around to burn off some of our dinner. We did quite a bit of wandering and eventually found ourselves at the Pointe Realto S. Marco. As you can see from the picture, it was quite dark. After marvelling at the view, we made our way back to the hostel.



The next day after eating breakfast, I meandered around and found some cool small areas. The picture on the left has this awesome tree that hangs over the wall and the small canal. The picture on the right shows an adorable little private bridge to someone's house along with a gondola.

Now one the activities that I really wanted to do was take a ride in a gondola. I didn't just want any gondola ride though, I wanted the stereotypical ride with the singing gondolier. This pretty and peaceful  trip would have cost me 80 euros, so I sighed and allowed my imagination to be suffice. When I think about it, I realise that it wouldn't have been a cheap experience, so I don't know why I thought I could afford it. Granted if I hadn't bought five Venetian masks (one of my slight obsessions), I could have paid the price. But I bought my masks and I couldn't be happier (except for one which I allowed myself to be bullied into buying, but whatever!)

As I wandered, I ran into the two Australians I had hung out with the night before. We ended up spending the day exploring Venice together. We made our way to Piazza San Marco (shown below). Next to that is the Saint Mark clock tower. It was cool because it not only showed the time, but also had the zodiac on the clock face.

After marvelling at the Piazza, we made our way to the Basilica. Inside was beautiful, but I found the outside ceilings to be wondrous with the gold  and all of the painted scenes.

Afterwards we made our way to the Doges Palace. It was a little pricey to go in, but it was pretty cool, so I guess it was worth it. Here is a photo inside the courtyard. There were so many rooms that I started to get a bit tired. The rooms were so elaborate and stunning, but as I moved from room to room the wonder started to decrease. There was just so much of everything! Towards the end of the Doges Palace, there were a few rooms full of weapons and other interesting artefacts. In fact, the piece I was most interested in was the sword gun. It was a legitimate sword with a gun. If you look closely at the sword in the middle of the photo, you can see the barrel of the gun on the blade. And if you follow the barrel to the hilt, you can see what I believe is the hammer of the gun. It was pretty neat!

After the Palace, we did a bit of shopping and some more wandering. By a bit of shopping, I really mean that I made them go into pretty much every single mask shop with me. Soon after we headed home to make ourselves dinner.

If you didn't realise how tiny the "streets" were in Venice, here is a good example. You could maybe fit two people shoulder to shoulder if you needed to, but it would be tight.

I found the street art to be outstanding in many areas. This cutout is pretty awesome looking.

The  Museum of Natural History sign was also pretty awesome looking. I didn't go in, but it looked pretty nifty. What was also pretty nifty was that they had foot prints leading to the museum like the one in the photo on the right.

The graffiti was cool to look at too.

My second morning in Venice, I hung out with the two Australians and we met a Canadian friend of theirs. He was pretty cool. The four of us went and got espresso, got a little lost in the streets, and did a bit more mask shopping before I parted ways with them to catch my train.

Overall, I absolutely loved Venice and cannot wait to go back and explore it better (and do some more mask shopping). Next time though I will have to tread carefully or I may forget that some steps lead to the water and nothing else. It can be a costly mistake especially when it is dark!