Venice

We took an easy high speed rail from Florence to Venice and arrived at lunch time. With JJ’s awesome sense of direction, we found our hotel, tucked away in a perfect, quiet place I would have never found. Venice is such a special place for many reasons. First of all, it is truly an island that is falling apart over time and weight. There are no cars, no reason for a bike, all you need is a boat to get around. Everything is on canals and the “bus pass” is for boats that take you around the canals. We walked around to get our bearings and then decided to take a boat to the island of Murano. It only took us about 20 minutes to get to this island with the most impressive blown glass. The effect of all the colors seemed to be numbing on my brain and after about 1 hour, it all seemed to look the same. Even though, each piece of glass is a work of art. We headed back, watched the sunset, and had a seafood dinner around the corner from our hotel.

The next day, we took a boat from where we are staying, through the Grand Canal to St. Mark’s Square. The boat ride was great and we got front row seats as we passed so of the most beautiful scenes of our trip. It is truly like a Disney ride come to life, except better! We got off the boat and walked through, quickly spotting the many pigeons. It is amazing that in that one place, it seems perfectly acceptable to feed pigeons and let them jump on you, yet everywhere else it is socially unacceptable, unless you are eating them in Egypt I guess. Well I guess that place is pigeon heaven. The cathedrals were really impressive, but due to the heat, we ducked back into the side streets for shade, and JJ guided us on a street parallel to the Grand Canal as we walked back to our hotel. After a nice rest, it was time to take my Mom to her bus stop and tell her goodbye. She was heading back to Paris and then to the States. We had a great time with her and made many wonderful memories. JJ and I went for a run before the sunset through the streets of Venice and the Jewish Ghetto. It was so nice to see more of the place and soak in the colors of the water reflecting on the buildings and the boats at this time of day. Venice is truly a painter’s paradise, no wonder so many artists have tried to capture it. We picked up some salad and a box of wine and headed over to watch the sunset from the same spot the night before. The colors on the water were so spectacular. We spent a long time just sitting on the edge of the island and relaxing, waiting for these colors to slowly fade away into the night sky.

We are now on the train headed to Trento and then the Dolomites for a few days. In front of us, there are three very smoky smelling men speaking some sort of Italian dialect and playing cards like there life depends on it. They are yelling at each other like they are the only people here (it is so funny), they also tend to rotate seats every 20 minutes??? This blond Norwegian girl is sitting next to them looking scared– just imagine the scene. Behind us, there is a girl around our age that looks straight out of the year 1985. She has a blue t-shirt sideways on one shoulder and her hair is in a curly afro at least 1 foot out from her head. JJ really wants me to start wearing my hair like this. J The Northeast Italian countryside is whizzing by.