Friday, at 20:00, we all board an overnight bus to Venice. As we begin the journey, the on-board movie begins; fittingly enough, it was The Merchant of Venice with Al Pacino as Shylock. It was very good. The movie ends, it's 22:30, the seats are uncomfortable, none of us are tired, and we are scheduled to arrive in Venice at 6:00 to begin our weekend. It looked bleak.
7.5 hours later, it still looked bleak. In fact, it looked like this:
Turns out, arriving at 6:00 was the best possible scenario. As we would soon find out, Venice was overrun by tourists from about 9:00 to 3:00 (the next morning). This wholly unpleasant hour of arrival meant that for about 3 hours, we had the whole of Venice to ourselves. With no map, all we knew was that the bus station is on the west side of the island. Conveniently enough, the sun rises in the east, guiding us to San Marcos Square. The sunrise was beautiful:
Walking around the city while it was empty, dead ends around every corner, and pedestrian paths and winding canals between strange looking buildings, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was in some new sequel to Myst. It's a very unique city and roaming aimlessly doesn't get boring.
Anyway, I won't give you a play-by-play of the whole weekend - just a synopsis:
Saturday was reserved for walking around, people watching, eating street food, and generally enjoying the city and the atmosphere. San Marcos Square was a treat; it's filled with strange architecture,
a view of the Grand Canal,
and - most notably - very wealthy Carnival-goers who spend hundreds of dollars on their costumes.
Saturday night, we go to an Italian restaurant (they just call them "restaurants" in Venice...weird) where we get pizza and gnocchi (we weren't blown away) and chianti (we were very pleased), before joining the island-wide late-night party that is Saturday night during Carnival. During the course of the hazy night, our large group gets separated into 4. Astoundingly, we all meet up on the boat to our hostel. Did I mention that public transportation is by boat?
Sunday, we tour the Correr Museum (a general purpose museum), the Doge's Palace, and a church or 2. I highly recommend the Doge's Palace. It includes an prison, armory, the government complex, and the Doge's living quarters (in reverse order). Given the very unique governmental structure of Venice (read about it below), the complex felt like a combination of the White House and Parliament (except more Italian). It was very big, very interesting, and very much worth the 4 euros to get in (not to mention escaping the crowds).
By the time Sunday night rolls around, we are dead. A quick accounting showed that by the time we boarded the bus, we had been in Venice for 50 hours, 5 of which involved sleeping, after a sleepless 10 hour drive from Budapest.
Tuesday morning, we compared the sleep we got on Monday. Salem won with 17 hours.
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