Zara vs. The World: Venice

I will admit that Venice took a while to grow on me but in saying that I am happy that I have been and can now cross it off the list. I am not too good on boats and water so we were really never going to hit it off, especially since my hostel was only accessible by quite a lengthy water bus ride. However the location did have its bonuses, one of these been that it was off the main island and was on the island of Giudecca.

I only had two nights there (quite enough for me) so on my first day went exploring San Marco looking around the narrow streets and watched people take gondola rides. It is well known that Venice is the most expensive city in Italy so there was no chance I was going to take a ride on one of those gondola, it probably would have meant I'd have no food money for a few weeks! I enjoyed watching the people ride them though. It did make me giggle when there were gondola traffic jams.

So many gondolas

And some more!

San Marco's Square

Water bus stop

As I was walking along a crowded path I happened to come across a sign that said 'NZ in Venice'. I did a double take but sure enough there was a small art exhibit by a Kiwi on show so I went and checked that out. It was an interesting find and all the workers were Kiwis so it felt like been in a small gallery in Wellington and this was the last thing I was expecting to find in Venicd.

Light through chairs on a ceiling...

I later found myself a large slice of pizza to munch on before heading back over to Giudecca. I have never seen so many people try to cram onto water buses, well to be fair I'd never seen water buses before then but can imagine a packed one and these were just insane. When I got back to my hostel I can't begin to explain how nice it was to be away from the crowd.

PIZZA!

I slept well and decided that I did not want to go back to the main part of Venice on my second day so looked up alternatives to that. This meant that I ended up on the island of Lido. It took me a while to figure out why it was different from the others and then it clicked, there were cars! On Trip Advisor it said that Lido was a spot where locals escaped the tourist hot spots and hit the beach but I'm not sure I agree with them, it seemed pretty packed with tourists here too. Especially the beach! I've never seen so many people on a beach! I found another huge slice of pizza here though and also some home made gelato so was happy. I must have got on the wrong water bus back though because the journey back took a good 1.5 hours verses the 25 minutes one there. I did get to see police and ambulance boats zip past though.

Cool street name :)

Let the pizza diet begin!

That's one huge slice!

The last part of my day was probably my favourite time spent in Venice and that was when I set about exploring the island I was staying on. Walking around I rarely came across anyone and found a great spot to read my book alongside a canal. I could look out and see the main part clearly from where I was and it was then that I started to think about what an unusual place this was and how hard it would be to move house! I'd hate to think of the stress that would cause!