veNICE is not so NICE

Some sort of gondala fiasco...
see all photos »

We caught a nigth train to Venice the night after our swiss extravaganza.  Everyone told us you can do Venice in a day so that's what we decided to do.  Really, you probably only need half of a day.  Venice was not that impressive.  I'm sure it was in it's hayday, but laden with graffiti the beauty is sort of sucked out of it.  I'd recommend the Venician in Las Vegas...at least it doesn't smell.  I can't imagine Venice in the Summer.

Most of our day consisted of us roaming through claustrophobic streets with not clue where we were going.  In hindsight, we decided it would have been better to take a tour so we knew a little more about what we were looking at.  Being the badass traveler I attemped to be (not taking tours, doing everything myself, avoiding the tourist office) I think I may have missed out on some things.  Sometimes you just need to give up your pride, take out your camera and fluffy white tennishoes and say...."I'm a tourist, where is the postcard stand?"

Sometimes you just need to give up your pride, take out your camera and fluffy white tennishoes and say...."I'm a tourist, where is the postcard stand?"

Pigons....and...
see all photos »

Kels had a flight to Frankfort from Treviso and Treviso happend to be the place that I had arranged to stay that night.  WE took a train there and my couchsurfing host came and picked me up.  We went to his place, a basically brand new flat 5 minutes from teh airport.  He asked what I wanted to do and I told him I just wanted to take a shower.  He then informed me that since he didn't have a shower curtain I would have to take a bath in this big, luxurious bathtub.  I was in heaven.  I probably spent an hour in there but it was great.  I felt like Curly Sue.  I got ready and him and I hit the lovely town of Treviso.  This was the Italian experience I was looking for.  He said the town was about 100,000 people and it never sees tourists.  I was the only one, haha.  He told me bits of history about the town, how in WWII it was bombed by mistake because the bombers got Treviso and a similarly named city mixed up.  We just went bar to bar and sampled Italian wines and little tapas.  What facinated me the most is that at these bars, a person orders, eats or drinks whatever, and befoer they leave are expected to tell the bartender what they had and they are then charged.  In theory, a person could have 10 glasses of wine and say they had 2 and the bar would just say ok.  They don't keep inventory or anything.  The amount of trust that goes on in some countries is shocking but refreshing.  You can trust people not to rip you off.  Not to say it doesn't happen, but it's just not expected at every turn and generally, good morals win out.

...churches about sum up Venice
see all photos »

We went back to Stefano's house and I was so exhausted I crashed immediately.  He woke me up before he went to work and I got ready to go to the train station.  On the way there I was concerned that I had missed it, but was assured by the Italian guy selling newspapers that the 'traino es 400 metres, no kilometres, 400 metres there".  I made it to the train, took it to Milan, and hopped on a flight to Glasgow.