Venice
Trip Start
Jun 09, 2007
1
20
27
Trip End
Jul 17, 2007
Venice,
Italy
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Was very excited to have arrived in venice, albeit a little suprised that there were cars and that there was no room for gondolas in the little roadside canals near my venetian hotel, 45mins from the city of venice.
At about 6pm, we left our hotel to go into venice for a look around at night and a bit of tea. We boarded the ferry - Venice,s equivelant to a bus, and within 10 mins we were there! It was a perfect near full moon night and Venice is beautiful at night - all the reflections on the water, the lights, the gondolas floating past and the odd strain of a serenade...
We walked across the bridge of sighs (so named because of the adjacent prison building, prisoners walking across it would sigh because it was the last bit of daylight\italy they may ever have seen) and then around the corner to see st mark,s square. It was fairly busy but quite easy to move around in. The ground seemed to be covered by about 1\2 an inch of water. The guide explained that it was because it was high tide and that the water levels are getting higher and higher ad that venice is slowly sinking. Experts are saying that if something isn,t done soon, they,ll be in real trouble in 20 years time. Because of this there is a 5km an hour speed limit for the boats and even the speed boat in the Italian Job had to stick with this.
The meal was quite nice - vegies, pasta, tomato and mozarella, tiramusu and italian coffee. i,ve been brought up to never ever add sugar to tea or coffee but thought this night would be the night to start - italian coffee comes one way - black and strong enough to make your hair curl.
After tea, a walk through some of the narrow alley ways which twist and turn like a rabbit warren then back to the ferry and then on the bus for the hotel.
Prositution must be big in venice, or more visible anyway. I wasn,t counting, but there must have been at least three dozen young girls by the side of the road on that fairly quick ride home. In those short skirts and low cut tops, i don,t think it was the bus they were waiting for!
