Venice

Its hard to believe that it is the second night that I've been in Venice.  We only had today to walk around, basically looking at all the sights we could see, and do some shopping.  I definitely have to get a new camera, as I know that I took about 4 or 5 shots that are not there (serves me right for not double checking how they turned out)... I did get some classic shots though.  I wish my photos of other parts of Venice you usually don't see turned out.... like the cargo boats, and how they offload product for stores... they manage to cart around about 1/3 of a pallet of food up and down stairs, through crowds, with comparative ease... it was quite amazing to see that.

Anyway, here are almost all of the pictures that I took in Venice...

A view of the Grand Canal

One of the many small canals

I wish I would have got a different angle of this street light. It was a dragon like creature holding two umbrellas that formed a globe around the lamp.  

And my favorite picture, which is not scenery at all....

When you visit Italy, you have to have coin on you as there is a charge to use a public washroom... between $0.50 EU and $1.00 EU.  You can use a restaurant bathroom if you are a patron, for free.

This image greeted me when I lifted the lid at one restaurant we visited in Venice :-)  It definitely made me smile :-)

I did like visiting Venice, and there are parts that I enjoyed seeing more... the off the beaten track places the locals go to.  The classic tourist attractions like St. Mark's Square are much to busy. Even when we got there at 8:30am in the morning, before all the shop keepers (aka street vendors) set up, it was starting to fill up, and the lineup to go into the basilica was over 1 hr. long.  No, I didn't wait in line.  We preferred to spend the day wandering the streets, and getting lost without too much care, just seeing what we could see, and appreciating some of the fine details in the homes that were built so many centuries ago!  There was one more modern building (a bank, I believe), and it looked so out of place with the other buildings around it.  I think I would come back, but only if I could stay and relax far away from the crowds, and visit some of the outlying islands in the region.  Although, after saying that, if you could park yourself in the corner of a plaza, it would be a great place to people watch.