Venice

After a rough night, Venice is one hell of a place to wake up in. A sprawling labyrinth of canals passages, and town squares, this place is definitely one of a kind.

The first order of business however: A bottle of Italian wine. Nothing helps you wipe out a bad night like drinking a bottle at 10am. Vino FTW. And speaking of w(h)ine, Greg is in prime form. He was really grumpy after the nighttrain and his rants were fantastic. "Where's the effing consideration? I don't need to hear what your food tastes like. Turn off the light. I know the sun isn't always shining there." Good old pissed off Greg :-p.

Anyway, we headed for San Marco Square and it was absolutely impressive. The poles where they used to string up criminals have ropes ready for use (we decided not to tempt it - probably the way to go), the facade of the church of San Marco is an incredible sight, and the Campanile towers over the whole scene as a beacon. Throw in a few thousand birds, the open bay with gondola docks, and it's an incredible scene.

(Side note on the birds - there are seriously a thousand pigeons hanging out in that square and the big thing to do is to buy feed and get them to climb all over you so you can take pics. HUH?!?!?! Really? Every other city in the world and you'd shoo them away as fast as possible and mumble something about a flying rat. But not in Venice. Nope, put some bird seed on your head, the bird flies up, takes a crap on you while it eats and moves on. And you've got a "timeless moment" to remember. It's obviously beyond my comprehension.)

We climbed the Campanile and the views of the city were astounding. The whole city is cut by a snaking canal and the only visible way in or out not by boat is the bridge of railroad tracks and a 2 lane highway. The houses are so tight-packed that you can't even discern streets (btw, not a single car in the town. Each "street" is maybe 8-10' wide). Canals shoot in all different directions, and the outlying islands around Venice make an awesome backdrop. Once again, this place is beyond unique.

We next decided to head for the southern point of town where we could see into San Marco and check out a few more churches. The churches have boatfront parking too. That has to be a sight on Sunday.

We also had to call the lady who was in charge of our room in Cinque Terre, which was fine until she picked up and doesn't understand English. Fortunately days and numbers in Spanish are very similar to Italian so I was able to get her to understand that we were due to arrive the next day and what time we thought we'd be there. Still though, it must have been funny to everyone around to look at the American struggling to talk on the pay phone.

At one point I looked at Greg and half-jokingly said "Wow, this place looks just like Vegas." And you what, it does. Maybe the correct thing is to say Venetian looks like Venice, but still. Scale down some of the stuff, throw in a slot rack and some craps tables and it'll be just like home :-p.

We polished off the city with a slice of Pizza (fantastic), some more wine (this is becoming a running theme), and a Gelato (You're right Jess, it's awesome there). All in all, it was exactly what was needed to get past the crappy train ride over.