I have to admit that when we were discussing the trip, Venice was the first place I was willing to skip if we needed to cut out a location.  After making the visit I’m glad that we worked it in, even if it that is due to a few specific things we did there as opposed to the city in general.

First let me get a few negatives out of the way.  More of an annoyance than anything, (and as we had been warned) the streets are incredibly difficult to navigate.  The problem lies primarily in that they don’t have street names posted all the time, and the names of streets change constantly from block to block.  In addition to them being extremely curvy, getting from place to place in the city is an adventure.

Venice might be the smokingest city I’ve ever visited.  You couldn’t take five steps without inhaling a puff of someone’s second hand smoke.  You would think as an island the wind would blow the smoke away, but given the close quarters of the street the wind can’t get in there so the smoke just hangs there for everyone to enjoy.

Public transportation costs a fortune.  To take a regular bus boat one way is euro 6.50.  Not exactly the most cost efficient way to get around.  I’m sure that residents that use it regularly have some sort of monthly pass, but I would bet its extremely expensive as well.

Now the good stuff.  St. Marks Basilica is truly amazing.  Tons of domes, all done in Mosaics, with symbolism everywhere.  They also had several impressive chapels inside done in marble with religious statues and paintings.  My true “moment” was actually when we were leaving and a looked back into the church to try to take it in more on the whole.  I just felt this really cool, sort of mystical power, thinking about that fact that the building has been around in some form or another since the first century.  Truly amazing.

The Campanile, or bell tower in St. Marks Square, is the best way to view Venice.  I tried to get a full panoramic of the city from the top to try to share with everyone.  Be forewarned, though, that they don’t stop ringing the bells during the day, so check the time before you go to the top, like we didn’t, or you’ll have the bells ringing right over your head, like we did.  Loud as all hell and I could feel the vibrations from the bell in my chest.  I thought it was a pretty hilarious experience and made for a good story to tell after the fact.

I had my first opera experience in Venice, which I think is sort of fitting.  Although, I’m not wild about the type of singing, I try to be open to new experiences like that so when Cris wanted to go I was game.  The cool thing about the performance was that it was in three different rooms of a private residence.  We watched three different scenes in three separate rooms.  It was much funnier than I expected it to be, and Cris said it was very informal for an opera.  The house was really neat as well, and has one of the best views down the Grand Canal to one of the more impressive churches in the city.

Best part of Venice, in my opinion, wasn’t technically Venice.  One of the small islands on the North Lagun, named Burano, is really awesome and a must visit in my opinion.  It’s a relatively small island, but it populated with a more artsy demographic.  All of the houses are painted in veritable rainbow of pinks, greens, blues, and reds.  It was also very clean and had a really nice breeze blowing through the town.  I think if I were going to have to live in “Venice,” I would live on Burano.

The last bit I’ve been catching hell for and I’m sure I’m going to get some more, but I’m telling the story anyway.  Although I really love Italian food, I needed a little bit of a break from cheese.  So as we were walking around looking for a restaurant for dinner we ended up in a Chinese restaurant.  Yeah, I had Chinese in Italy.  I don’t care what you say, I needed a little change up.  Anyway, I tell this story because it struck me as very funny that the Chinese waitress in Italy spoke and understood English much better than any Chinese waitress I’ve ever had here.  That’s just not right.

On the whole the time in Venice was pretty good.  I’m really glad that we went and saw the things that we saw.  It was definitely worth the experience, but I have to be honest and say that I don’t think I’ll be going back anytime soon.  When I think back on Italy, I would go back to rural Italy in less than a heartbeat, but I’ll have to think twice about going back to the Italian cities.

And we’re off to Switzerland.