Venice

Venice started off badly. First of all, I wanted to stay in Paris. Then, the plane ride over the Alps was very bumpy and I thought we would crash and eat each other to stay Alive. Then, when we stepped off the plane it was hot and humid, as opposed to the perfect weather in Paris. Then, on the bus drive to the center of Venice, our bus got a flat tire. At this point, I started laughing, quietly, but uncontrollably. I thought we would probably soon be boarded by terrorists and I would be raped and killed. However, we did manage to get to the bus station, where we asked a man how to get to our hotel. He said to get on the number 2 bus. We got on said bus and drove for almost an hour before asking a lady who spoke very good English whether we were on the correct bus. We were not. And it was about 10:30 at night. So we waited for about a half hour at a bus stop for the next bus to come around. We took it back to the bus station. (A drunk man fell out of his seat two times during this ride.) Back at the bus station we met an American lady and her daughter. She had attended the same high school that Michael attended in Louisville. Small world, right? Anyway, she got us on the right bus - bus number five, and sure enough - two stops later we were at out luxurious hostel. Don't worry, it was really freaking hot, and hostels in Venice do not have air conditioning. I didn't get to sleep until about four in the morning, right before the construction on the hotel next door started.

The rest of Venice was good. When we made our way over to the floating city we had some really mediocre pizza and pasta and then some really fabulous gelato. The gelato in Venice was better than everywhere else (and cheaper), except for one little hole in the wall we found in Rome on our last night in town. Anyway, gondolas are freak expensive, so we took the public transport boat down the grand canal. You would have to try hard to take a bad picture in Venice. Everywhere there are flowers hanging from windows, little alley-waterways, paintings on the sides of buildings... It's beautiful. We found our way to St. Mark's Square and watched people feed the birds. Then we wound our way through the little alleys full of shops. There were lots of mask shops for Carnivale and lots of shops with glass from Murano, an island a little further out than Venice, famous for its glass making. People sold fresh cut fruit in cups with tiny forks. Of course, they also had really high end stores like Louis Vuitton, but we avoided those.

We spent the afternoon and evening there in Venice, sampling the gelato from several shops, and then went back to our hostel for another restless night. The next day we went and found the Jewish Ghetto in Venice, which is the oldest Jewish Ghetto in the world. It was Sabbath, so all the shops and museums were closed, but it was fun just to walk around and see things. We also happened upon some Jewish restaurants which were packed with all these Jews eating together and laughing. Looked like a fun time.

After a short afternoon in Venice we went to the airport to pick up our rental car and drove to our resort in Sappada, Italy. We had the worst time trying to find the highway that lead out of Venice. There would be signs pointing this way and we'd go the way it pointed and end up in the middle of town. Finally, after just wandering around for about an hour and a half, we found the highway and got the heck out of there. More on Sappada later, first, pictures of Venice!

Flying over the Alps. Scary.

Michael looking out at the Grand Canal, I think, from the Ponte Di Rialto

The Grand Canal

Some of the fresh fruit that we enjoyed immensely.

One of the very expensive gondolas.

A restaurant along the canal.

The Ponte di Rialto

Us on the public transit boat.

One of the little canals

Us at St. Mark's Square (Piazza San Marco)

I decided I could live in this little alley.

A dark and scary alley

In the Jewish ghetto

Also in the Venice ghetto

Michael with our little rental car