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March 31st 2008
Published: March 31st 2008
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The funny thing about Venice is that just about everywhere in Venice looks like everywhere else in Venice, but nowhere else in the world looks quite like the place. It is also a city that you need to get lost in - which is very easy, by the way - to really enjoy. Getting lost in Venice allows you to see the real bits of the city and to get a feel for how the people in the town actually go about thier daily lives away from the main touristy points (Piazza San Marco, Ponte Rialto, Academia, Lido) and the routes directly between them. It's also a place where getting lost is no big deal, as you are seemingly never more than 5min in any direction from a marker guiding you back to a point of interest.

Friday, March 28th:
Quit work a bit early today. Granted, because this meant that because I had a 6:00pm flight, I had plenty of time to kill before the flight, so I went a grabbed a bit at Borough Market before taking the train from London Bridge to Gatwick. It was a remarkably easy flight, practically over before I even noticed (and amazingly
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A very bored looking gondollier, looking for his first customers of the day
enough, there was nobody sitting next to me). Getting to the island was also very easy, with the bus driver completely ignoring the fact that I had no ticket and just telling me to stay on (I thought I could buy from him for 3-Euro, which is apparently not the case), and I got a bit of the lay of the land from a very nice Canadian woman who teaches English at the university.
The hostel, A Venice Fish, was difficult to find, as it is not marked in anyway at all. I had the address and got to to the right little maze of alleys off of a courtyard by asking some directions. But I still would not have found the place had I not heard a few very loud Aussies trampling by me and in - I knew then that it was the place. Very informal hostel, but the owner, Mimo, was cool, and the group I met immediately in the common room and kitchen were welcoming and fun. The place was hardly packed, as it wasn't really high season yet, but you could tell that the place would be absolutely rocking during the summer. We played a few drinking games, and then went off to the club around the corner (literally a 3min walk) for some dancing and general merriment - and horrendously expensive drinks (but hey, it's vacation and it's Venice, what did I expect).

Saturday, march 29th:
Slept in late -I needed it after the last week at work and the weekend in Wales previous - so I headed out into the city on my own. You have to walk Venice (there is no other choice, really), so a t-shirt and jeans was all I needed, as the weather was absolutely gorgeous, in fact I got a nice bit of color on my arms and face. My first stop was the Piazza San Marco. In relative terms, this was far away, as it was on the opposite side of the main body of the island. It took me approximately 15min to get there on winding, nonsensical streets, which gives you an indication of just how small the place is. I think I only got lost 3 or 4 times on my way there. Because it was on the way, I stopped off at the Ponte Rialto to take the picture and have mine taken. Just like everything else in Venice, it looks like it is suppossed to look - very cool, but full to the gills of people selling touristy crap. Actually stepping into the Piazza San Marco from the NW entrance is a stunning experience. You come from these small, crowded streets and see a stone wall about 30' away (Western wall of the Basilica San Marco), turning to the right, you then see the expanse of the piazza open up before you. It is suddenly so bright and big and airy.
The first thing to do, of course, is to wait in line to get into the Basilica. Despite being thoroughly long, it really moved pretty quickly. It is a beautiful building, with a good amount of light, and a cavernous interior. The really cool pert, though, is heading up a flight of stairs to stand on the balcony facing the Piazza San Marco. There is a little museum up there, too, that has the original 4 bronze horses taken from Asia Minor by the Venetians, which were subsequently taken by the Prussians (later to be repatriated) and copied to make those atop the Brandenburg Gate (Napoleon then stole those and some time after those were returned, the French made their own copies that now stand on top of an arch in front of the Louvre). The horses that you see from the outside here are copies to protect the originals from the weather.
Next on the piazza was the Doge's Palace. Obviously, the seat of power in the Venetian Republic for hundreds of years. It was really cool to get a bit of the history of the place and of the different, often secretive committees and organizations that made function, as well as taking in the details of the very famous structure from the balcony facing the piazza, to he golden staircase, to the Bridge of Sighs. Which, by the way, I crossed, twice (well, I had to get back). Post Doge's Palace, I went and saw the Bridge of Sighs from the outside, checked out a gondola berth hundreds of slips long just outside the palace and went and got myself a little pannini for lunch. I basically spent the remainder of the day wandering around the eastern half of the Island. My map sucked, so I pretty much ignored it, and I ended up asking a few locals where I was, and apparently I was off the map. The scary part was that I was back at the Doge's Palace in less than 15min. After a bit more wandering, I headed back to the hostel a bit before dark, and hung out there the rest of the night. The hostel owner cooks a free dinner of fantastic pasta for everyone each night, so that filled me up pretty good after walking all day. We Americans, and 1 Aussie who had worked in Whistler for the last few months (so he became a big US sports fan), watched most of the UCLA game and eventually crashed.

Sunday, March 30th:
Didn't sleep in as late today as yesterday, but still didn't get much of a jump on the day. I didn't need to, really, which is a nice change of pace from how I normally travel. Glen, one of the Australians from the hostel, and I decided to head off together for Murano. Murano is a tiny little island made up of 3 smaller islands a few hundred meters to the north of the main island of Venice. We hopped on a water bus to get over there. They don't
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Piazza San Marco
really tell you that you can buy a ticket 1-way on the bus until you try to buy a ticket somewhere else, after wandering around the bus stop (a floating pier) for a few minutes trying to find the ticket machine that the maps tell you is there. Tickets are 6.50 each way, but I did see the guy handing out ones for 1.50, but I'm not sure who got those, or what they did that made them qualify. In total, it took us 20 min to get from the door of the hostel to Murano, most of the time was on the boat.
Murano is famous really for it's glass-blowing industry. There are glass shops and furnaces everywhere, the only issue being that if you want to go see someone actually blow glass, you either need to pay for it or are expected to buy something in the shop next door. Basically, in about 90 min, Glen and I covered the entire extent of the island, which has some really cool glass sculptures and looks Venetian, as you would expect. Since there was much less touristy area here, you got much more easily into the general feel of the island and the families enjoying their Sunday. We grabbed a quick bite here and decided to head back to the main island. He hadn't done the piazza yet, and I had thought that the line to get up to the bell tower was a line for audioguides (stupid me, as this was the only sign there).
So we made it back the heart of the town, did the San Marco stuff for Glen, and as we were checking out a little garden off the of the piazza, we bumped into Natalia. She was an Argentinian who was also at the hostel last night, although, she seemed very awkward and unsure of herself, and barely said 2 words to us all last night. She was a bit more talkative today, most likely b/c there were only 2 of us, and she and I were communicating in a hideous pidgeon of English and Spanish (I think both of us were trying to improve our foreign language skills in a very ugly, ugly manner), but we communicated. So the 3 of us set off for the Academia museum, a good 5 min walk from where we were and after seeing the cost of
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Inside the Doge's Palace
9 Euro to get in, we bailed. Glen and I continued on that part of the island (south and west of the Grand Canal) as Natalia went off to check our Murano on our reccomendation. The rest of the day was spent getting lost and wandering around SW Venice, getting some little trinkets and gelatto along the way (very tasty!!).
Eventually, I had to head off and we parted ways, Glen to the hostel me to the Piazzale Roma for the bus to the airport. A good wait in the airport followed by the RyanAir scramble to find a seat on the flight home. Easy flight again, followed by a horrendous wait to get through passport controls at Stanstead, then the bus home. I got in about 1:30, which isn't all that bad considering.


Additional photos below
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Replica (I think the original is in Ravenna) statue of the 4 co-emperors of the late Roman Empire
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Gondola in the Doge's Palace courtyard
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Inside the Bridge of Sighs
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Bridge of Sighs
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End of the road
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I'm not sure exaclty why these people were dressed like this
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Ponte Academia
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Grand Canal


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