Venice

Venice does not feel real. It is like some kind of theme park where things are there more for entertainment than for municipal purposes. This is not surprising for a city that seems 100 percent driven by tourism. Venice is made up of a bunch of islands separated by canals, some of which can be crossed over by bridges. The grand canal neatly divides Venice into larger districts, and since only three bridges cross the grand canal, the entirety of foot traffic is directed to these three points in the city. While not too large of a city, it certainly seems like it is since one is forced to cross the width of the city just to reach a bridge. For example, say you were right across the grand canal from the place you want to be, but you happen to be on the opposite side of the district than where the bridge is. Well, you have to walk all the way to the bridge and then all the way back on the other side.

But wait, it is worse than that. Streets from Venice are not made logically, or if they were then they assume that water traffic is easy and plentiful, which it no longer is. Walking the streets of Venice is like wandering through a labyrinth with alleys that are never straight and, more often than not, dead end. This Bete Noire of a city determines at whim whether you will reach your destination as you stumble around blindly. Oh yeah, maps do not work here either. But I found it rather fun to wander through this maze. I like to think I am good at orienteering, but I was stumped so many times, constantly having to backtrack. Whenever I think I am starting to get the hang of it, I get completely lost.

So as a consequence, it always takes at least twice as long as you think to get wherever it is you are going. There are tricks that you learn along the way. For example, while street names are not helpful with a map, churches are, and you can usually find them by their steeple and use them as waypoints to get closer to your destination. Also, since traffic is funneled to those three bridges, simply finding a stream of people and following the stream will take you in that direction. It would make a great activity to start somewhere, pick a destination, and then race someone to see who can get there first (without running).

Adding to the amusement park aspect of it, every shop is either selling carnivale masks, pizza, glass decorations, or gelato. The gelato here is better than the gelato anywhere else in Europe, at least so far as the places I have been. The combinations of the flavor, portion sizes, and price are second to none. For one euro you can get a scoop of size between 3/4 to 1 cup, much cheaper for the amount than anywhere else. There are quite a few museums around Venice, but none so interesting as the ones in other Italian cities. It does have a fairly large palace, which was very tastefully decorated compared to the ostentation of other palaces. The palace also held the worlds largest canvas painting, which was indeed quite large, and came complete with an actual dungeon, which I found pretty entertaining.

Also of note was the Guggenheim museum that was nondescript, unlike its massive sister museum in New York. I usually find abstract expressionism to be somewhat less than real art, since it is supposed to express the subconscious mind and therefore should only be interpreted by the subconscious, and minds like that should not be in a museum or near sharp objects. But at any rate, there was one featured piece that, either through some trick of lighting or by the properties of the painting itself, you could not actually focus your eyes on it. Whenever you try, you end up looking past it like you do at those 3-D pictures in order to get the 3-D effect. It was a very weird experience.

All in all, I really enjoyed Venice, even though it took so long to find places that I wanted to go. Well, it is good I did not cover everything since I would really like to come back here some day. Also, I do not know how much longer my body can take this five-scoops-of-gelato-per-day habit without suffering ill effects. On to Vienna!