Venice, an island, a Labrinyth, a city of water.

M So we got on our night train and were sharing a cabin with 2 men from Bosnia., they were nice guys. Our common language?...Spanish. Yep our little pathetic Spanish, and their little Spanish, but combined with lots of pointing and guestures we did just fine. We were able to talk a little about their families etc. I was on a top bunk, and was scared all night that I was going to fall off, so I did not get much sleep, but we did arrive safely in Venice without being gassed or mugged, etc.

After arriving and getting lost (a theme for our time in Venice) trying to find our hostel, we decided to walk around the city and look at the sites. It rained all day, but we love Venice. The water is not exactly clean, but not as bad as I remember it from my half day stop here 10 years ago. I think they must have done something to clean it up. We got SO lost. Venice is like a big labrinyth.

One of my favorite parts other than the amazing architecture and canals, was feeding the pigeons. We will try to get some pictures up here on the blog to show all of you. There are so many pigeons in the main square, and people selling bird feed for 1 euro. Those birds are crazy. I could stay there all day just watching people laughing and screaming as they hold out thier hands and the birds attack. It was SO funny to watch how people react.

We warmed up at a resturaunt for lunch and had authentic Italian pizza, mmmmm. It was an early night to bed as we were very tired from our lack of sleep on the train.

January 6 is a big day for many countries in Europe, as it is the day that they celebrate the 3 wise men coming to bring gifts to Jesus and this is when the kids get gifts. We saw in a travel magazine that in Verona there is a huge mascarade type festival. So we got tickets to Verona which is only 1hr from Venice. It was the start of many things to go wrong. First of all it cost us 27 Euros for the tickets. We were told it should be about 6 Euros each, which is what we payed from Verona to get home. The only thing we can figure is that the price was so high because we paid at a machine rather than waiting in line to talk to a teller.

Anyways, once we arrived we went to the tourist office and asked when things were going on. She said nothing was happening. I asked "isn't there a parade or something"? She said "well, yeah there is a small one at 5pm but it's not much". So we got on a bus that our guide book said went to the center of town. After riding for one hour we finally asked the bus driver by pointing on the map. He was very frustrated with us dumb tourists and said we were on the wrong bus. So 1 hour later we were in front of Castel Vechhio. It was the first Sunday of the month, which (according to our map from the tourist office) meant it was free to enter, but when we went in they said that because it was a holiday it was not free. Grrrrr.

Oh well, we paid anyways, and it was a really cool Castel. Then we ate lunch and went to the center, only to find out by looking at the posters (that were everywhere) that the big parade/mascarade was at 11am and we missed it. Thanks to the lady at the tourist office.
However, there was something else at 5:30 so we planned to come back. We then saw where Juliette's balcony is. I guess Shakespeare's famous play was written about the families in Verona. There is a tunnel to the courtyard with the balcany, where hundreds of couples have written their names in a pledge of love. So of course we did too! Yes it was very romantic/cheesy.

We walked around the city afterwards, and saw the huge arena (smaller version of the coliseum in Rome). Very very cool. It was huge, made me think of what things in Greece looked like in the past. Then at 5pm we went to the center and found hundreds of people gathered. At 5:30 there was a play of the wise men bringing baby Jesus gifts. Although I suffer from short person syndrome so I could not see, Jes gave me the play by play. Then everyone turned their attention to a huge witch in the center of the square. She was as tall as the buildings. The MC got the kids yelling at the witch putting thier hands out towards her. Then the music started and they burned the huge witch. The heat was amazing from the fire. It was a neat experiance, we would have like to understand the significance as it was all done in Italian. Afterwards we walked around experiencing the party (which was mostly for children) and finally headed home to Venice and our hostel.

The next day we took advantage of the first city that FINALLY gave us a discount for being young (under 30), without being a student. So we bought a 3 day pass for the busses and water busses. The water busses are a great way to see Venice, with the locals. The gondola rides are extremely over priced. We went to the island of Murano to see all the famous glass work which was neat. Then just spent some more time walking around. Just as it was getting dark we decided to take water bus number 41 as it goes all around Venice. It was like a romantic moon lite boat ride with chocolate. Sure we were on the public transit, but we were the only people sitting outside, and we were eating the last of our toblerone from Switzerland. This was great for the first hour, then we realised that the 41 also went around another island, so we were on the bus for over 2 hours! We were more than ready to get off and go home to make dinner by the end of the ride.

We made friends with a guy from our hostel and stayed up until midnight talking to him. He is a computer geek, so Jes and him hit it off right away. The next day, our last day in Venice. We saw the sun for the first time in days. It was beautiful, and got to 8 degrees (although it was very humid).

We went to a museum/palace/prison and walked around for a few hours. Neat, but we were glad we got in for half price with our discount card. We then went to the cemetery, which is an island by itself. The grounds we beautiful. Back on the main part of Venice we went in search of a bathroom. We found a cafe, but they did not have one. Most resturaunts were closed for Siesta, or that's what we called it as most of them close at about 3pm and open again at 5 or 6pm. The public bathroom, which was suppose to be free with our discount card would not accept the card and wanted 1 Euro, which Jes was not going to pay, then we finally saw it... the golden arches! Yep a MacDonald's with free bathrooms.

We try not to go to too many MacDonald's, but sometimes it's just the best option. We sat there enjoying a snack and people watched for the better part of an hour, tt was very enjoyable. Then we walked around some more and did some grocery shopping before heading home.

Tomorrow we are off to Florence. Jes is again spending the evening talking with Martin, the guy from our hostel, who is from Uruguay. It may be a late night again, but that is fine as we enjoy meeting fellow travellers.

Caio from Venice Italy.