Venice, Island of Islands

Whew, what a busy two weeks.

So I finally met up with Rachelle and Kayli in Milan. We decided that renting a car would be much more cost-efficient for three people than taking trains everywhere, so we piled into our tiny little Renault rental and headed off to Venice.

Two hours later, we finally found the highway.

But in spite of our little scenic route around Milan, spirits were high, and the ever-visible Alps served as our guide to the coast.

We drove across the Italian plains, through towering mountains and ridiculously lengthy tunnels, and we finally had the sea in sight.

What I failed to recognize from maps was that Venice was not connected to the mainland. It was nestled in the middle of a large lagoon, and a tiny two-lane highway was the only entrance/exit to the cluster of rocks which was Venice.

When we crossed over, the only public parking we could find was a large parking garage that charged 25euros to leave our car there overnight. So we headed up to the top floor and feasted our eyes on the world-famous city of canals.

People are serious when they say that the locals can only get around by boats and gondolas. From our vantage point, we could see no streets, no cars, and shit-tons of pedestrians. As we made our way down to the city, we happily got lost in the maze-like collection of alleyways and canals.

There were literally millions of tourists there. With a population of only 60,000 inhabitants, Venice was completely dominated by visitors. I don't even think that people actually had jobs there that weren't geared towards tourism.

The streets were full of pizza vendors and souvenir stands, the alleyways were littered with restaurants and small craft shops, and the canals were crowded with gondola drivers charging 120euros for a romantic float around the city.

We stopped at a small Italian joint for some dinner and spent a few minutes looking through the menu. After inquiring about free water, we could visibly see the waiter getting somewhat frustrated with us. After laughing a bit at the fact that the prices there were astronomical, we told the impatient waiter that we were still thinking about our drink choices...to which he replied, "I think you leave now. You come to play, not to eat. This is very rude in my country." And then he slammed the door on me and Rachelle, not realizing that Kayli was still behind him. So then he let Kayli out and slammed the door again. HAHAHHAAH, what a prick.

Anyways, every canal had it's own little uniqueness about it. And there were sooooo many tiny bridges connecting each island that it felt as if you were in an enormous playground for adults.

I can't remember how long we walked around the town, but the only impression I had when we left was pure amazement. Although there weren't many famous monuments or structures, the sight of a city traversed exclusively by foot and boat was amazing enough.

We finished our tour late at night, so we decided to just sleep in our car on top of the garage, looking over the city of Venice while it slept. Worst night of sleep EVER.