Seasickness in Venezia (5.8 - 8.8.2008)

Is there a more beautiful city in Europe than Venice?
Could be, but it is certainly pretty high up on the list.

The only thing that makes it annoying are the millions of tourists that conquer the city and the unbelievably high prices for everything. So rather walk the city on a rainy day in winter if you don't want to fall over Japanese tourist groups.

For living in Venice people need (besides A LOT of money) PATIENCE. Just because there are no cars or scooters, so you have to walk the way from your house to the boat and the boat buses take about an hour to go around the main island. But is also is the most quiet city I have ever seen (especially in Italy). That might be the reason why there are so many old people who look very happy and peaceful. And instead of impressing your girl with a fancy car, you pick her up at her nearest dock with your sport boat with self-installed speakers. Life in Venice is just different- more quiet and with a non-stop fantastic view.

Our hostel was located on Guidecca Island, south of the main island with incredible view (as you can see on the left, my bed was just next to the sea). The hostel again had separate dorms for 12 people each. But the very big hostels have the disadvantage that they have a rather unfriendly atmosphere and people stay more on their own. This one did also host families and a lot of adults. Breakfast was a big disappointment as well as it consisted of a bun, one piece of butter, one jam, one hot drink and nothing else and nothing more, unless you pay for it. Not even enough to fill me up and certainly not enough for Tim.

We spent the days walking through the city, admiring the big ass yachts, trying to avoid the masses of other tourists, trying to find cheap food or Internet (NOT possible). But we had to admit that our energy level was pretty low. While we still could walk for 6 hours in Paris, we were tired after only 2 in Venice. So it was kind of nice, that the boat trips took so long, as we could relax and enjoy the sea breeze. Unfortunatly I got seasick by it. Not really sick, but the ground was moving for me even hours later and I had problems to keep my balance.

In the evening we wanted to cook cheap food and as there was not kitchen we just got the cooker out and cooked in front of the hostel next to the water (which was forbidden - STRICTLY forbidden in fact).

As we wanted to play cards again we needed more people and Tim convinced two Spanish guys to join us - again from Bilbao. Seems to be the home of cool people =). So we spent two evenings with our new friends playing cards, smoking and making fire (Yes, Tim the Firedevil).

Another highlight in Venice is the City's cemetary. I don't know if that is typical for Catholic or Italian graveyards, but I have never seen something like that. The graves were arranged in the walls like bookshelves. I felt a bit like in Ikea storage room. "Go to aisle 34, shelve 73 no. 6- that is were you find grandpa". And the fact that every grave carries a photograph of the deceased was pretty alienating for me. A good experience, but I prefer the way it is done here.

The supermarket was also extraordinary, because it had pretty loud dance music on. So what we did was to dance in the supermarket aisle and taking a video of it. That was big fun!

Another lesson learned and nice experience for me: The old Italian people always look very grumpy and critical at you when you pass by. But when you start smiling at them, they smile back. An old lady even waved at me out of her window - how nice =)

Venice is famous for glass art, which is why they sell beutiful and useful stuff as well as crappy and useless stuff to tourists and everybody who needs it. We went to the glass museum, which was pretty much a disappointment as it only showed a collection of vases from different times and nothing really about how it is made or the differnet techniques.

So, we say bye bye Italy!

Franzi