Venezia

Venice one of those places you have to see for yourself to marvel at its uniqueness. We spent 3 days there and didnt do much else except walk around and get lost in its 'streets'. With space at a premium the smallest gap between buildings are shown as big streets on the maps and with many of these unnamed its easy to understand why almost everyone who has been there gets lost.

Venice is Italy's most expensive city and many people who wish to save money stay in Mestra on the mainland and travel by train or bus to Venice daily. Since we were there for such a short time and factoring in the cost to come into Venice we chose to stay on the island itself.

Venice seems to exist purely for the tourists. Almost everyone who works there comes in on the ferry in the morning and leave by evening along with the day trippers. So the whole place is eerily quiet at night when the remaining tourists fill into restaurants and hotels. I found this to be the nicest time of the day when you can walk past shop windows and gaze at the gorgeous Murano glassware and Venician masks for as long as you like. Both of these Venician exports are hideously expensive, well the originals anyway, and the stuff that is affordable is almost always from China. The Murano glassware in particular was very beautiful with every conceivable colour in every design imaginable from animals and vases to chandeliers, jewellery and chess pieces.

The other main activity on the island is of course the famed gondola rides. It costs about 90 Euros for a minimum hour ride and neither Pramo nor I wanted it that much to justify the cost. It would have worked out better if there were other people to go with but it didnt feel quite right to go with strangers in such a small and intimate setting.

I didnt think there was any one thing is particular which stood out in Venice or any particular reason to want to go back but like I said at the start of this post its one of those places you have to see for yourself.