Beautiful Venice

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Geo: 45.4345, 12.3384

Today we left Innsbruck for Venice. Leaving Innsbruck though was quite the spectacle. Leaving the snow capped mountains was a surreal experience. On the road out of Innsbruck, the snow capped mountains were everywhere we turned. Whilst it was raining for most part on the way out, it snowed at one stage and our bus drove through the snow. It was simply amazing to see the white stuff on the road, in the mountains, in trees and even on the windscreen of the bus.

A few hours drive and we were in Venice. What I saw in movies about Venice and its canals, I was now seeing in real life. The architecture as well of all the buildings of Venice was magnificent. Unique but beautiful.

We took the water taxis - the world's most expensive taxis - into Venice through the Grand Canal of Venice. We saw the Rialto Bridge. I thought the water taxi would be quick, ie jetboat speed into Venice but no, it took its time getting into Venice. We were able to appreciate and we had time to look around and take in the sights of Venice.

St Mark's Square was beautiful. The church, the old buildings and architecture around were truly magnificent. We only spent a few minutes there but enough to be impressed.

After that we went on a gondola ride around Venice. It started off quite well. We got in the gondola and started the ride around the city. There is something peaceful and calm about being out in the water on a gondola being pushed by someone other than yourself. So it started off really peaceful with the occasional rock to scare us.

Then it started.

It started to rain. Peaceful? Pff...get us out of there as soon as possible and let this rain stop! The bad news, we had to endure this for the best part of the gondola ride. The good news - well there is no good news. Despite this, we rode the gondolas around, looking at the magnificent architecture of the buildings, all whilst thinking, hurry up, we want to be dry.

Finally, the ride ended and out next stop was a glass blowing factory. The demonstration was short but impressive. This one guy just took a piece of hot glass, blew into it from a metal steel place and somehow it formed into a shape! First shape was a vase and second shape was a horse. We were then shown the shop and the salesman talked a bit about the products that were on offer. What was impressive was that he took a glass, whacked it a couple of times on a hard surface and the glass did not break!

After browsing the shop, it was time for dinner and off to the hotel.

Until tomorrow.

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