Venice is everything that you expect it to be plus heaps more. We arrived in on the train from Lucerne at about 6.00pm in the evening. The experience alone of just walking out of the train station is one that stick with you. You're not slowly lowered in to the Gondolas, Canals and bridges. You walk out and there it is, BAM! Right in your face.
The cheapest and best centrally located hotel that we could find was called the Forresteria Valdese which just happened to be a nunery. Yep that's right we were staying with nuns. We decided to take the Vaporeto to the guesthouse instead of walking because the nun's also had a very strict curfew and would only allow check in from 6.00pm to 8.00pm. If you missed that then it was stiff. You would be sleeping on the street for the night. The Vaperato is a great way to see Venice especially with your backpack as there is no walking involved. After about 15 minutes we arrived at our stop San Morco Square.
The streets in Venice really aren't signed that well. The ony directions that you can see everywhere is either a sign pointing to San Marco Square or one pointing the other way to the Train station or maybe one of the other two major bridges over the Grand Canal. After about 30 minues of decifering our map we finally made it to the forresteria. Our room was a doulbe room with a bathroom over looking one of the canals on the third level. The room felt a little more Italian with the grape vines hanging from our two balconies.
That evening we decided to spoil ourselves with a nice dinner which was the perfect time for me to try some fine Italian wine. We found a little spot just around the corner from St Marks Square with a huge menu and best of all air conditioning. It was hot! The small winding streets of Venice don't allow for any airflow at all so the temp was generally around 30*C in the evening.
Our first full day in Venice:
After rising early on our first day we went down stairs to have our big communal breakfast with the nuns. It wasn't great but who cared. We were in Venice Italy.
We decided to go for start our sight seeing with a lesuirly stroll along the Grand Canal. There are only three bridges that run accross the Grand Canal, the most famous being Rialto Bridge. Though it's also the one that is packed solid with tourists taking every kind of momento photo possible. In the afternoon we decided to go through the San Marco Basilica which is the burial place of Saint Mark. The legend goes that his body was stollen from Alexander in Egypt and smuggled to Venice in a barrel of pork. The idea behind this was that Muslims can't touch pork so they would nevr find his body during a search. St Mark now rest beneath a huge marble tomb which I'm sure is mush more spacious than a barrel of pork. The Basilica itself is mostly decorated with things the Venicians and the 4th crusade stole from Constantinople. They have gold, silver, statues, bones, parts of the cross (so they say), marle, precious stones and the list goes on.
That evening we decided to try and eat cheap as we did have a budget to stick to but Venice is the kind of place that budgets just don't conform to. Internet was about 14AUD for an hour, restaurants would be at least 40 Euros for both of us and the big supermarket was on the other side of town. We did however manage to find a small little pizza shop near our hotel that would sell large pizzas for about 5 euros which for two people is reall good. So for a few dinners and lunches we would puy a pizza and two drinks and just sit on one of the many 400 bridges and watch the world Gondola by as we relaxed.
On one of our last days we decided to go over to Murano and check out why it is the capital of glass blowing in the world. We caught a small Vaparato over and just wandered through the many small shops just marvelling what these people can make with glass. There is everything from eagles to jars, horses to the Simpsons, lights to Venician glass porn, you name it they have it.
We checked out all the sights in Venice but the one thing that we didn't get to do due to lack of time was a ride on a Gondola. They are expensive (80 euros) but they are something that you kind of want to do, even if it's just for braging rights.
I'm extremly happy with what we managed to do in Venice and I can easily say that the city is ticked off for me. The only thing I may considering returing for one day is to perhaps check out the Carnival.
After 4 nights we headed to Florence.