Venice - the most beautiful of Italian cities

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People call Venice the most romantic city in the world, and I can completely understand why, even though I spent the weekend there solo or with a girl pal. The tiny little streets where two people can hardly pass by, with balconies overflowing with bright coloured geraniums, with romantic little windows with wooden shutters, around every corner is a small bridge over a canal filled with gondolas... It's all very pretty and very romantic. I don't know why everyone always complains about the smell - it was 30'c+ for all the three days i was there, and there was no bad smell whatsoever. The only noticable smell is that of the ocean. It was great. Especially in San Marco piazza, which is very pretty, and it opens straight onto the sea. The Church of San Marco is pretty special - its a mixture of ancient Greek, ancient Roman, Byzantine, and gothic French influence, not to mention lots and lots of things stolen from Constantinople. It all works remarkably well together. The church itself inside is gorgeous - completely covered in gold mosaics. The Ducale Palace would have been a great place to live - it's placed between the sea and San Marco. The windows are constantly wide open with the sea breeze floating through - its a huge contrast to the stuffy air of most museums and galleries. The sea breeze must be conducive to the preservation of art, something I thought was impossible. The sea permeates everything in Venice - its in the art, its in the air, you're surrounded by it, the only way to travel anywhere is by boat, because there are no cars (which is fantastic!!) The other thing about Venice is the masks. They're everywhere, of every colour, design, shape and price you could want. And boy are they gorgeous. We went to see a show of the history of the Carnivale, which was great because all the masks and costumes came to life. Carnivale seems like an incredible and surreal time to be in Venice - that is my new aim in life. We also managed to get to the islands of Murano and Burano. Murano is where all the famous Ventian glass comes from. We saw a glass-blowing and glass-moulding demonstration. What an art! Some of the glass things were pretty tacky looking, but some were amazing. Shame we live so far and the chances of the stuff surviving all the way to Melbourne being really slim. Burano is where famous Venetian lace comes from. Its a little island village where all the houses are painted in pastel colours and there's a shop selling incredible lace every few meters. It's like a town out of a fairytale. What's a real shame is that the lace-makers are slowly getting old and dying out, none of the younger generation is taking up the art, and within 50 years its quite possible this amazing art form will be gone. Now that would be a huge loss to mankind.

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