Voyage to Venice

Breath-taking. The only word that can describe the historical city centre of Venice. Many epithets have been attributed to Venice, such as the “City of Water," "City of Masks," "City of Bridges," "The Floating City," and "City of Canals". It is all of these and more, with its 118 islands connected by 400 bridges. Coming from Berlin, the party city, Venice was such a contrast, where the nightlife is almost non-existent and instead overrun with more “mature” tourists or those looking for a romantic getaway (not that mature tourists can’t have a romantic getaway too). Public displays of affectation, PDAs, on a bridge are almost obligatory in such stunning surroundings. What else can you do when your Google Maps sends you down an off-the-beaten track to places you weren’t intending to go.

From Berlin, somehow we scored priority boarding, albeit on Ryanair. Not sure that we were the envy of other passengers and it was obviously an extra that we didn’t realise we had paid for until boarding. At least we got on-board before the other plebs could take up all of the cabin space. After a forty minute boat ride from the mainland, we arrived in the Venice city centre, with only a short amount of time to explore the city before sunset. Enough time to get lost down the many rabbit warrens in the city. Some of the “streets” are no more than a slit between buildings that if you’ve eaten too much pizza and pasta you may get stuck. At one point there were about three couples, us included, with phones in-hand studying Google Maps trying to make our way to our desired destinations, all looking at one another and giggling to ourselves. Stupid tourists.

Wandering the streets and overhearing some of the conversations was entertaining in itself. One American tourist, sitting at a restaurant, loudly proclaimed “we don’t like predetermined portions”, which we guessed was just another way of saying that he prefers “all you can eat”. All before witnessing an overflying pigeon poo on a woman standing innocently in the streets. All she could do was smile and wipe her hair clean. What else can you do when shit happens!

The atmosphere of Venice has a Renaissance feel to it, with its preserved architecture and lack of traffic. All of the religious iconography, particularly portraits and sculptures of Mary, had us reciting quotes from John Waters' “Pecker”: “Full of Grace, Full of Grace”.

It was also an environment that allowed Jason to have a few revelations, or a few Jasonisms if you will. One Jasonism was that many of the countries, especially in the Mediterranean where siesta is a tradition and had no Sunday trading, could resolve their economic crises if they just opened up their shops. Here we were wandering the streets with Euro to spend and nothing to buy. They don’t work Sundays, some may work Saturdays, but they rarely worked a full day. Another Jasonism was that Ricky always takes photos that make Jason look fat. Jason claims only ever to take good photos of Ricky. We agreed to disagree. Ricky’s revelation was that religious flagellation was just the medieval version of sadomasochism. There wasn’t a need for a S&M club when the Church flogged you, or when self-flagellation was the “norm”.

Some might say a form of masochism is walking over 33,000 steps in one day. Although the city centre of Venice is not large, we traversed almost every street, alley and slit in the city. Ricky needed knee and hip reconstruction by the end of the day and was almost tempted to steal the knee brace from a woman walking down the street.

The picture perfect views were all worth it though. With every step and every corner, the jaw drops and a slight gasp occurs. We had to pinch ourselves. Were we really in this magical place? Had we really walked past the burial place of Marco Polo, the Rialto Bridge, the Grand Canal, Saint Mark’s Basilica and Doge Palace? We even stumbled upon a modelling shoot, with a woman dressed as a half-naked pirate. Ahoy matey! No, it wasn’t a dream.

Next stop: Florenceもっと詳しく