So, almost a month since my last post, geeze, what a long time. Well that just means that I have more to tell. Since then I've been all over Italy and just got back from Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany.
So here's something about Venice.
For the most part, Venice is all about walking around, as there are no cars, not like we would have rented one or anything. Which is relativley great, but Venice isn't built for the number of overweight tourists that lumber and plod through the narrow streets and skinny bridges. But I digress...
Lets start 'er off nice a simple, here's the all important creater of this blog, and just look at him. Finest example of a human I have ever seen! O ya, I'm on one of the only 3 bridges that cross the grand canal that effectively divides Venice in a ying yang sort of way.
Inside the basillica on Saint Marco's square, your not allowed to take pictures, I think they have a copyright on the gold covered walls or something, whatever, their Basillica floods every day! The 'W' I'm letting fly is for "why not?" by the way.
Being awesome, Chris and I searched and found a Leonardo Davinci exhibit displaying recreations of some of his mechanical inventions. Most of it was pretty impressive, but he was a victim of his time, and some of them were just stupid. I was particularly fascinated with his take on the Archimedes screw, shown above with one of his flying machines that you would have to be an idiot to think would actually fly.
My favorite bridge happens to be the very first one I saw in Venice, right outside the train station. It also crosses the grand canal, meaning there is one more bridge that crosses, the Rialto Bridge, which is the most famous. For what reason I don't know, I am really curious to know who dictates what things are 'Most Famous' where ever I travel, because most of them are overrated or stupid. I won't show you that one, leaving some for you to see for the first time if you ever make it to Venice. Anyways, I like this bridge from how thin it is, under-crowed, and all together elegant and bad ass. From what I can tell it is all masonry, and building that is an achievement.
Our hostel was tons of fun, with the exception of it being run by several stupid travelers just for several weeks, waiting for the 2 bathrooms for 40 people, o and the insane infestation of bed bugs, still recovering from those bites. Rachael gets a shot out, cause I definitely didn't understand how awful those bites could be.But staying positive, the people in the hostel made up for all of its misgivings. We had a great pasta meal and then drinks with some ladies from Ireland, Scotland and American. A great mix, and the cultural (mainly accents) lead to much laughter!
As is so much in Venice, the ambulance is on water!
Instead of public buses, they have water buses, which are really just for the tourists. But it's a great way to see Venice from the water, and pretty cheap, however it does take a long time. As you can see, it's a blast!
Do NOT causally stroll between the boat and dock!
Drawn by the sound of Vivaldi, the next exhibit was a string instrument display. Venice is famous for its history of string instrument craftsmen.
The worst thing about Europe is the disgusting sky rats. And I guess a reason they are so prominent is that tourists think its amazing to feed them and have them crawl all over them. I am just disgusted with this, and cannot understand who would let themselves be defiled by these horrible creatures. We have now seen them here and in Paris, it couldn't be everywhere could it?
The tallest structure in Venice is the bell tower, and keeping with tradition, we climbed it. unfortunately you have to take the elevator. But we lucked out and got there just as the noon bells started, and man were they loud! Check out the video at the end.
And of course I was the only one who wanted my picture underneath the deafening bells.
The view is quite nice, you almost can't tell there are canals between the buildings.
The oars that the boatmen use are quite large, as Chris models.
A typical Venetian residential canal, with private boats and little bridge.
And that sums up Venice. Again, sorry about such the long delay, hopefully I haven't lost my few readers, feel free to post or ask questions, even requests!
