Weekend in Venice

Sat 11/2/17 - Venice!!
I went to Venice with my housemate from Paris.
Early morning flight to Venice. We left the house at 5am and it was -1 would stay at 0 until lunchtime which I consider as good a reason as any to leave the country.
Venice was much warmer, around 10 degrees. It's funny how everything becomes relative after a while.
When we landed in Venice around 9am, we found our accommodation had been cancelled and quickly found a plan B.




Venice is beautiful. It's charm is in its dilapidation. The paint and render are coming off the walls, the bricks are disintegrating and the streets flood but this all contributes to its whimsical beauty.

When you have no destination and ample time, you can just wander down the countless alleyways, over numerous bridges and along canals, turning whichever way strikes your fancy. They say all roads lead to Rome, but in Venice, no roads lead anywhere. It is a maze of twists and turns. GPS, my trusty friend in Paris, has limited functionality as it is impeded by the tall buildings and streets signs are few and far between. But, with time on our hands, we just got lost and admired everything.

As we walked down a street there were these two very Italian buskers. They played the happiest most Italian music.  It was a great way to start the day.

 As it was the start of Carnival there were a few people in costume. This lady in red was outside St Mark's Bascilica.

These people were in teams all wearing the same colour robe. I think it was some sort of scavenger hunt.

This weekend was the start of Carnival, the month long celebration that is an excuse to sell masks, wear costumes and have a party.

So, to embrace the spirit of celebration, we bought masks.

At 3, we met the lady we were renting the room from. She gave us a mini tour of the area and gave us a bottle of wine. After a brief nap, we got ready to watch the parade.

This is where the twisty narrow alleys become tiresome. When you have a destination and a time frame.


After getting lost multiple times and encountering massive crowds, we missed the first parade so decided to have wine and wait for the second show.


Drinking wine and admiring costumes. This is where you buy wine by the litre and they decant it into a soft drink bottle for you to take away.



Around 7.30 we tried to cross the bridge to get to a good vantage point to watch the parade down the canal but the crowd was too big. No-one was getting across the bridge and the police were failing to direct traffic. Hearing someone yelling to their friend in English we decided to tag along with their group of 8. They were a bunch of college students from America who were studying in Italy. They were all drunk and wandering around aimlessly so we tried to direct them towards food. I have a huge slice of vegetable moussaka and several pastries. Then as a group, we went to the Irish pub for a Guinness (as you do in Venice).

Eventually we parted ways and tried to find our way home which was even more difficult than it had been to get out. Around midnight we crashed in bed and had the best sleep of the trip so far.

Next morning we wandered around looking for the morning parade but failing to find it and suffering from starvation, we had pasta for brunch then headed to the bus that would take us to the airport.

We took a taxi home and had a very quiet night. And I booked my ticket to Disney land for tomorrow!