I inevitably think of the movie "The Italian Job (2003)" when I think of Venice and its canals. I personally kept imagining the boat pursuit scene in the "highways" of Venice!
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| My Italian Job! (taking photos :P) |
9th September 2016
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| See that? It is not a building. Give it a guess! |
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| This could easily be any harbour in the world (I could be fooling you lot ;)) |
Haha if I fell in the man hole it would splash in Venice. Cities so different, odd lives, different worries and fears. Most of the houses look uninhabited. I am unsure why though, I have heard that the waters of Venice are rising and also that the structures are close to collapsing, maybe those are reasons for abandoning houses?
Some people say that they love Venice but I feel like I missed the memo. How do you fall in love with a city or a country? How do you decide that you want to stay in a certain culture? Is it instant? Or does it aggregate with time?
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| The polished pretty boats are the expensive water taxis |
Venice is filled with foreigners, it is truly an international city. Meeting different people, hearing from all parts of the world. Exploring architecture, art, fashion. Dogs, cats and animals behave differently here. I would say that they are very well behaved here; well, to be fair, most pets in India are not trained (I doubt that the owners know what that even means)
For some odd reason, I always seem to be thirsty. The water here simply cannot quench my thirst. I have a feeling that it is lacking some basic minerals and therefore we don't retain the water and it just passes through us like a canal! I wish that I had a portable microscope...
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| NO MAFIA! VENICE IS SACRED! |
Boat travel is very slow, it is amazing that I had so much patience. And by consequence, everyone is very laid back. More than a few times I have heard the gondola drivers (can we call them that?) singing Italian songs that remind me of the Disney movie "The Lady and the Tramp" (Bella Notte song). The gondolas are extremely expensive for only half an hour so we decided not to ride in them this time.
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| Every station has a rather large history book I bet |
The system of boat transport is quite interesting. There are many lines (much like bus lines) which is why this system is called the water bus. There are many stations and there are no lanes in the water, but since everyone is extremely laid back, I guess that it doesn't really matter to them much.
There is a famous bridge of Rialto, though I do not know exactly why it is famous. It was being renovated and was very crowded. I think too many people put me off now. Well, coming from a city with 100,000 million (which is expected) to a crowded place anywhere else in the world (unexpected for me) I simply stay away from crowds naturally.
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| I always wonder what were in the minds of the people building structures like this |
Were they thinking of paying their bills with the money from this? Were they thinking of how many people will use this structure? Were they hoping that it will not rain while they are working? Were they singing while they worked?
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| Accademia |
The place for the academics maybe? I did not venture inside but I will come back to this city and explore it thoroughly (when there are no tourists hopefully)
We happened to see two couples who got married on the day and were travelling by the water to come here and take photos. Both of the couples even wished each other and, as expected of Italy, the couples looked like they had just come from a Hollywood set.
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| The building moved! |
It is amazing to me that very large cruise liners go through the lanes of the waterways here. It feels so surreal.
(^__^)
We got lost many times (as usual), we didn't buy a map (expensive) so it was a given I suppose. When we finally found food, we rushed and ordered pizza! I had read that most restaurants give a bread basket when you sit at the table even if you don't ask for it. I had also read that they charge extra for this so when a basket of bread arrived on the table, I was extremely suspicious. But, we were starving so we indulged (there was no butter to come with the bread, that was really strange for us).
The pizza came just as we were dying of starvation (almost). They were not cut into slices, we were quite surprised. I guess that the pizza cutter was not invented here but across the Atlantic Ocean in the Americas. I feel like we were paying to cut our own pizza. Or was this vengeance? Or just tradition?
I knew how to ask for the bill when we were done! "IL CONTO PER FAVORE". The R's are rolled a lot in Italian, it is fun to say "PER FAVORE", which means "please". They had charged us for the bread basket, no surprises there. It was only after we indulged did we realize that on most of the tables around us, the bread baskets had been left untouched. Well, my stomach was happy.
(^__^)
I missed my chance to speak Japanese and I regretted it immensely right after doing so. But moments that pass never come back. The opportunity was perfect for it, but I still did not take it. I could not take advantage of the fact that were extremely diverse people in this city. I will not hesitate next time (I hope).
(-__-)
Just a few more nights with my family and then and I hope that I feel the "I'm going to live here far far away". Am I scared? I brush these thoughts aside as we wander through the canals of Venice and inevitably get lost.
[Since I just found the pictures that I took while I was travelling, I will be adding some more photos to my previous posts (apart from some points that I forgot :P) so, if you are interested please check it out after my next post]
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