It's been a while, but I thought maybe, just maybe, I should get the rest of the pictures from my summer trip put up.
I got to Venice pretty late in the evening, and didn't get to see much the first day, as I was so tired from the trip. I had gotten a carshare from Florence to the Padua train station, and finished up with a half-hour train ride into the city.
Overall, I was not very impressed with Venice. It was extremely crowded, and the hostel there was the worst one I stayed at during the entire trip. My roommates were unfriendly and paired off, and the room itself was dirty and crowded.
I managed to enjoy myself anyway, and on the second day, I found pretty much the only green spot in the city.
I also got lost a ridiculous amount. If you're on the main pedestrian thoroughfares, it's not so bad. Directions to the main attractions are painted on the walls of buildings to make navigation somewhat possible. If you wander into the side streets, however, there is no way to tell where you are. Everything is closed off, and you could be walking along only to be met with a dead end when the path you are traversing goes straight into a canal. Any maps you get are either inaccurate (google maps) or not large enough to have the smaller streets marked out. Getting lost is part of the fun, though, and you eventually find your way back to a main street, whereafter getting to where you want to go is fairly simple.
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| Nice bridge |
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| The theater |
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| A lot of the city was really run down. Rocky tocky as my Opa would say. |
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| Rialto bridge. I was there early enough that all the shops (behind the doors) were closed. |
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| Grand Canal, with mismatched houses |
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| A smaller side canal |
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| St. Mark's Basilica undergoing restoration |
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| View across the bay to San Giorgio Maggiore |
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| The city is full of crooked towers. This is just one of many. |
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| This is how crowded it was on the main street. Imagine that many people crammed into a space only a fourth of that size. |
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| Entrance to the Naval Base |
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| Sea Force One luxury yacht |
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| Floating market! |
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| Kayakers on the canal |
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| Leaning tower of San Pietro di Castello |
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| Cutest house! |
The 56th International Art Exhibition, La Bienalle di Venezia, was going on while I was there. There were a lot of free exhibits, and a lot of really expensive ones. This is an exhibit for urban planning in Russia I believe. I don't remember exactly.
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| Shifting perspective of the changing seasons. As you walked around the room the images changed. |
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| Innovative benches. Some where cool while in the sunshine, others warm in the shade. |
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| Mirrored floor reflecting images on the ceiling of changing architectural styles through the decades. |
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| Piazza San Marco. Way too many people. |
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| Quiet side canal |
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| Frari Basilica |
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| Another view of St. Mark's Basilica |
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| Construction boat! |
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| More canal and bridges |
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| The sun set on the land side of Venice, so I walked/ran all the way to the end of the train station to get a good view. |
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| It would have been nicer without all the poles and wires. |
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| Sunset |
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| Canal and boats |
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| This house had an unusually large number of chimneys. I doubt all were functional. |
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| City at night. |
