Okay, I'm neither greeting nor parting with Venice at the moment, but that's the song that this random guy was singing in the park during our siesta. He was quite possibly crazy, but very entertaining. His merry song went something like, "Ciao Venezia, ciao Venezia, ciao Venezia, ciao ciao ciao ciao. Ciao Venezia, Venezia, ciao ciao ciao. Venezia, ciao Venezia..." It was very funny. Jill caught a bit of it on her audio recorder:-)
...Hi everyone!!!
We are in Venice, and it without a doubt the most gorgeous city I have ever been to. Not to be confused with the prettiest city (Prague) or the most fantastic city (Paris) or the most gorgeous place (Giverny) but definitely the most gorgeous city. The canals are beautiful and it pretty much looks just like the snapshots that you always see when people get home from Venice, and now I have a bunch of those myself. I love that there are no cars. In Rome, the drivers were completely crazy and would honk at you to go quicker when you were crossing during the green walking man, so I have to say I definitely don't miss them at all, and everywhere else in Italy the mopeds are so fast and loud, and in Venice it's so much more peaceful. Mo's Rick Steves - Best of Europe mentions, "When you enter Venice, you leave your 21st century perspective behind you." It's totally true. We got into the city for our first full day here yesterday around 10 a.m. (we're staying just outside the main part of the city, so we take a shuttle bus in and out) and we were completely lost within five minutes and couldn't have cared less...all we wanted to do was wander around this beautiful city.
We did after about three hours finally find the Guggenheim (which had an AWESOME collection- I especially loved some pieces by Carra, Tamayo, and Boccioni) and then we set off in search of the beach. Except, water taxis to the beach were about 15 dollars round trip, and we didn't want to go the the beach THAT much. But, we were in need of our siesta! Which is how we found quite possibly one of the only grassy patches in Venice, and settled down for a nap that was oddly awokened by Crazy Guy's "ciao ciao ciao ciao"s.
The time until sunset was spent on a completely unsuccessful search for the Jewish Ghetto...we finally consulted a map after a couple hours of brilliant deductions like, "I see a cross. We're not there yet." Maps are fairly useless in Venice, especially ours, and both the path we'd managed to take and the location relative to us were completely ridiculous. Oh well. We closed the day with some delicious pasta and even more delicious gelato, so it was a good day.
Our last few days in Rome were wonderful as well. We spent Wednesday in the Vatican City- the pope didn't speak because he was tired from his travels, but we saw St. Peter's and the Sistene Chapel and the Vatican Museums and more nuns than Mo could count. And Thursday was spent mostly en route to Venice, seeing the Italian countryside (so pretty. Oh Italia.)
So, we have basically two days left...today we have the whole thing to spend in Venice, and tomorrow we catch a train to Milan and hopefully have our last supper at The Last Supper and then Monday, we're flying home! Wow. Crazy how seven weeks have gone...it's funny, I'm ready to be home and see people and be productive and all that stuff (though...oh Europe, you're wonderful. I will miss you so), but I wasn't expecting to stop writing these emails so soon! I feel like I'm parting with you all, which is funny because actually I'll be geographically much closer to most of you. There are probably only two of these left now: one Monday night or early Tuesday morning, assuring you all that my plane landed safely (knock on wood) and then one more after about a week with PHOTOS. Hooray! By the way, the last place we will get to see is Atlanta, Georgia's airport during our three-ish hour layover, where we are determined to have KFC because we saw one in every single country until Italy. In Florence we met a couple from Atlanta who said that the airport did in fact have a KFC, so we should be in good shape.
Well...au revoir, auf wierderseign, ciao venezia ciao ciao ciao ciao, until next time,
much love,
Sara
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