Venice: home of gondolas, glass blowing, and Jon Lovitz

Elena in a vaporetto on the Grand Canal
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Venice. There's a lot of water and no roads. And for the next four days there was us, too.

Venice is a beautiful city that is built a heap of canals, with the Grand Canal being the "main road", so to speak. The only way to get around is by getting a "vaporetti" (water bus) or walk. The first thing we did was to drop our bags at the station and take the #1 water bus (stops everywhere) down to Piazza San Macro. The trip down was gorgeous and Piazza San Marco, while choc-a-block with tourists, was still pretty fantastic. The water buses, while nice, are just not that practical enough to serve as a primary form of transport; by the third day we just walked everywhere as it was considerably faster.

Never trust a waiter who looks like Jon Lovitz

St Marks Square
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After all that we decided to relax on a gondola ride through the canals. It was ludicrously expensive, but its one of those touristy things I don't mind doing. It was a very nice way to spend 45 minutes, despite the blistering heat burning us to a crisp.

On the afternoon of our first day we grabbed our bags from the station and jumped on the bus to the campsite we were staying at (there's not too many hostels in Venice). Due to some lame instructions and a sign that can't judge distance (1000m, pfft), we ended up walking 1.5k to the campsite. It was hot. We were carrying our bags. We were cranky. Our only savior when we arrived was beer. Sweet, cool beer.

Richard on the gondola ride
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The only real problem I found with Venice is the tourists. The tourists (90% American) out number the locals 5:1. Its insane. It was nice change on our second day when we went for a walk through one of the islands and got ourselves a little lost to the point where there were no tourists, if only for about 5 minutes. Beggars can't be choosers, as they say. Also on our second day, we visited St Mark's Basilica (where Elena had to wear a shawl over her singlet top) and St Mark's Campanile (bell tower). We also booked tickets in advance for the Palazzo Ducale the next day.

Elena and Richard on the gondola with our driver
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On our last day we went to Murano to see some glass being made. On the positive, the show was free. On the negative, it was pretty lame; it's basically a 5 minute gap of allowing you to watch the artisans at work with a guy making a few comments about it, then you are shown to the store on the way out where 98% of whats on sale is commercial grade (ie. its not even made at the factory). Regardless, it was still interesting to see it made and I would still recommend it.

In the afternoon we made our way through the Palazzo Ducale, which was a pretty cool experience. There were engravings on the window sills made by the prisoners in their cells up to 500 years ago, including a portrait made of Ludovico Sforza. We snuck in a few photos of those engravings as they were too good to pass up (which is funny, because most tourists did pass it up; walked straight on by).

View of Venice from the bell tower
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At night we had a few drinks at Iguana, a tex-mex place with great happy hour Spritz (white wine, Campari or Cynar and Mineral Water) - 1€ each!. Despite not being Italian cuisine we would have been better off eating, as the place we ate at was terrible. The waiter, Jon Lovitz in 15 years, scammed us into buying a 10€ salad (more expensive than our mains); The food came dangerously quickly (I'm all for good service, but two pasta dishes being served 30 seconds after I order is a little too fast), and later proved its worth by giving Elena food poisoning; and finally it took us 10 minutes to convince someone to bring us the bill. I honestly wish I remembered the name of the place so I could advise against it. My only advice is to not eat at any restaurants on the main roads.

The Ducale Palace
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After that delightful end to Venice, it was off to Bologna.