Venice, Oct. 27 – 29, 2006

Venice is an elegant decay as Rick Steves points it out. The moment we stepped in Venice we realized why it is the city of Romance. The beautiful Grand Canal, the decaying buildings soaking their feet in the canal, the beautiful gondolas and striped shirted gondoliers and small channels of water for the streets, Venice is certainly one-of-its-kind city. For every car, bus, bike, motorcycle and even a chauffer-driven car, there is boat (vaporetto) in Venice, its primary mode of transportation. A single ride is costly but a 24 hour pass is cheap as we planned on traveling all around Venice in one day.

Venice was crowded another touristy city but its narrow streets, the glass art and it masks make it unique. Piazza San Marco may be the biggest square in Venice and it was flocked with tourists and pigeons. Rick Steves had warned us enough for pigeon dropping. However, we saw pigeons charging tourists who had bird feed in their hand. Pigeons are harmless so it was neat. I tried the same and somehow so many pigeons wanted to sit on me. It was scary but now I have many pictures with pigeons all around me.

Next we decided so sit in the front seat of a vaporetto and just tour Venice. We realized how Venice is slowly sinking. The city is very costly and so the population is slowing dwindling. In the evening we toured the Rialto bridge area, a typical tourist market. I was totally awestruck by the artistic Venetian masks. Anyway, after that Tarun had planned for us a pub crawl, not for the drinks but for “cinchettes” (special fried snacks). We visited two places and tried 6 different cinchettes. After countless days of pizzas and pastas, the cinchettes were blessing and that too the tasty one.

In the night Venice is even more romantic and so are the gondola rides and the occasional gondola with music on them. This surely one place every one must visit.