Day 16 - Venice
On arriving into Venice at 8.30am and after a night of very little sleep, we were awoken from our sleepy worlds by the most picturque view as we left the station, the grand canal sparkled in the sun light, the narrow main street was already busy with tourists and trade plus the sun was high in the sky delivering the perfect weather for what would turn into a great day in a beautiful city. This must be the first place that I have not judged on first looks, It looked a bit run down, but this just added to the charm making the city of canals a truly different and interesting place to be.
After dropping the bags off at the hostel, we grabbed a map and started to explore. 10 minutes in and I was in awe of every turn, narrow street and canal. From this a new term was born that Mel now uses a lot on this trip, "Have you gone round your bowl again". What I mean by this is that throughout the day I would turn to Mel and say something a long the lines of, "Wow, look at that building/bridge/canal it looks amazing" in which Mel would turn to me and say, "You are joking right? we passed this canal/building/bridge like 15 minutes ago! Have you gone round your bowl again?", referencing the fact that goldfish have very short memory spans!
For most of the day we just wondered the streets till we hit a dead end, and would just turn around say "O dear" and walk the other way. The main sights in Venice were good and interesting but nothing could beat the joy of walking over a new and different canal or finding a pretty square. The most disappointing part of the day was finding out how disrespectfully other tourists are! We went for a look at the Cathedral and once we got in, after a bit of a wait, I had already had enough of the other people pushing in line and when we finally got in the crowds pushed even more! Adding to this they took pictures even though it said not too and tour group leaders shouted at their groups to speak louder then the group next to them, even though it was sign posted saying that tours were forbidden! No one looked at the church and its brilliant art work, they walked round turning suddenly snapping a picture and moving on a glazed over boredom in their eyes. We had to leave, I could not focus on what I was seeing because of now much I was being shoved and also because of how angry the other visitors were making me.
After this we returned to the streets and soon I was happy in the maze again. It was soon time for a rest and we returned to the hostel to discover our cramped 5 bed room complete with wet room in the middle of the bathroom between the toilet and sink, meaning that I could have had a shower, used the loo and brushed my teeth all at the same time! After a sleep we dined in an expensive restaurant, in which the waiters and chefs just yelled at each other, we got a front row seat because they had sat us right outside the kitchen door, but I did get to try the local cuttlefish which was very tasty. Then as the sun went to bed and the moon arrived in the sky parts of the city that had been a tiny bit disappointing in the day came alive in the evening. The squares filled with live music and even the local tacky street sellers helped to light up the sky with their floating helicopter light sticks. It was a great end to a perfect day.
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