Ve-nice? Hmm

Two days in Venice were more than enough for me. It's hard to say if it was the city or my attitude that tainted the experience for me. I had heard awful things about it from friends (several said it "smelled" while one even went as far as to say it was "the worst city in the world"). But I think I just wanted to get to Florence--the last stop on my urban tour of Italy before heading to its breathtaking countryside. Let's face it: my heart was in Florence when I set foot in Venice.

My first afternoon in the watery town only made matters worse. This excerpt of an email I sent a friend that day best sums up my first impressions:

"Everyone warned me that Venice would be stinky. Sure, it smells like water, but that's expected (it's a string of islands!) and it smells fine. One thing I do find annoying is that the streets are short, maze-like, narrow, dark, and very confusing. They all have long multi-voweled names, like Ravanno R. Vecchia S. Giovanni. Building numbers, like 733, mean NOTHING here. So you literally have to walk with a map in-hand to figure out where the hell you're going. Now if you're a tourist (which 9 out of 10 are here) just looking to get lost and explore any and all streets that's great. But if you're a tourist who's trying to get somewhere, like say, your hotel, and you want to do it before dark (dusk is around 5:30pm) and it's 2:30pm and you still haven't eaten lunch and you're starved, then it sucks. What's worse is when you FINALLY find your hotel and no one's there to let you in. Grr. No worries. I eventually figured it out, but it was nonetheless a frustrating afternoon. I'm looking forward to a new day tomorrow."

When the "new day" came, so did the rain. Buckets of it. As soon as I stepped outside my hostel

room, my sneaks were in a puddle. And when I got to the city's famous St. Mark's square, I was shocked to see it was nearly completely under water. For a minute there, I thought Venice was really finally sinking!! But when I saw two-foot-tall elevated walkways leading into the gorgeous square's Basicilica (including inside the holy ground itself per photo on left), I knew this was just another day in the Venetian life, which is so not for me. Gorgeous surroundings? Yes. Convenient? No. As a person who thrives on walking around (as many of you know, I don't drive--not that it would matter here), I felt stifled. I didn't want to walk anywhere in my cold wet socks.

So on day two, I was happy to toss my luggage on a vaporetto (the poor man's gondola ride, costing only 6.50 Euros compared to 80 to 100 euros) and head to the train station. Of course, it was a beautiful sunny day as I exited the the islands. Go figure.

Other Venice highlights (because it's actually a photographer's wet dream):