Venice has no grass

It took me basically a full day to realize that everything in venice is stone or water.

Venice is really a “do it in 24-hours” town. Jeff and I were there for about 28 hours total, and we’d done everything (oh sure, you can take one of those famous boat rides for well over 100 euro, but that just wasn’t going to happen) that there was to do within the first 24. That means walking around the island, visiting St. Mark’s Cathedral, and taking a water taxi around the channel.

But those last four hours were some of the most fun. We took the opporunity to get thoroughly lost.

In Venice it’s nearly impossible to find a street sign or a notable landmark—the city itself is composed of disheveled brick buildings and narrow waterways; it is the most beatiful maze I’ve ever seen. And what’s more amazing is how Venice is actually a city. The Rialto bridge is crouded with toursits at all hours of the day and night, but if you wander 50 feet in the right direction, you’ll find alley cats and small gardens made of potted plants.

If you wander even further, you’ll find a few piazzas tucked away from the noisy, bustling district. We sat on a bench for about two hours and essentially just people-watched.

We saw several kids playing their own version of soccer, shouting melodically at each other in Itallian, and occasionally sending an errant shot into a nearby allyway. But they disturbed one too many bench-full of elder italians (who, to my amusement, simply chucked their ball off as far as they could, watching them run after it), and gave way to a startlingly large number of dogs.

I’m not really sure what to say about the whole process other than that it was probably the coolest part of Venice for me. Just to see it as a city.