Pizza, wine and Gelati

Ciao,

We took a train from Interlaken to Milano and after having been kicked out of our seats twice because we had no reservations (it wasn't required but there was no way of knowing which seats were reserved, so we sat in the corridor for 4 hours), we finally arrived on the island of Venice. Venice itself is made up of 118 islands which are divided into 6 districts, all connected by bridges. You either walk or you take a boat to wherever you want to go. There weren't too many places that Conor and I were interested in seeing other than the Piazza San Marco, the Basillica, and of course the worlds first Ghetto (1516). A lot of the other attractions (for the 20 million summertime tourists) are churches, and houses that belonged to people with a lot of money or people of high notoriety. I'm not downplaying how beautiful these places are, it's just that paying money, that could go towards pizza, wine or gelati, seems silly when you're not bent on seeing something from the beginning. So Conor and I walked the streets of Venice where at every bridge, every alley, and every campo or piazza, we were surprised at how Venice could just get more and more beautiful.

Venice is an old old city that tries to accomodate a more modern lifestyle. This seems impossible and I think that it is why even though you're surrounded by tourists it never looks too touristy because it always looks old, the touristy shops look out of place rather than a cluster of vendors that make a city look like a tourist fair. Venice still has the capacity to allow you to imagine what the city could have looked like at the turn of the century. You can turn off the busiest street onto some of the prettiest streets and feel that you've stepped back in time - Venice has an air about it, something I've never felt before, it has met all of my expectations.

We're off to Rome tomorrow.
I miss you all.

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