Mike's Bullshit Tour Diary - Venice

Hello everyone

Venice - Magic town

We ate pizza, pasta, lasagna, gelato, proscuttio, cheese, baked goods, spices,salts, sugars, salami, calzone, olives, anchovies, salad (only joking), pizza by the slice, fresh rolls with cheese, fresh rolls with ham, fresh rolls with salami, fresh rolls with cheese and ham and salami, rice balls, deep fried mozzarella balls, pesto, bolognese, fish, octopus, sardines, roasted peppers, mini bread sticks, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and drank the cheapest sparkling red wine we could find in the supermarket.
There's nothing like a decent bit of stinking salami, topped off with an equally stinking chunk of cheese just before breakfast. mmmm mmm. We ate every hour, walked across the entire city and slept like rocks.

Highlights

1. The city is beautiful, and ancient. There are no cars, or motorbikes or even pushbikes so there are times when you can spend hours out of the 21st century. I woke up one morning at 7am and walked the quiet streets by myself. There were children rushing to school, old men drinking espresso and port, old ladies sweeping freshly hosed paths, markets selling fresh fruit and veggies to restaurants directly across from their stalls, iconic Italian stuff, nothing was missing. I walked into a small stand up cafe and spent half an hour in the company of a dozen 70+ year old Italian gentlemen in old suits. They couldn't understand me, and I couldn't understand them but I drank two espressos and let one of them buy me a shot of port. I spoke broken Italian and they laughed at me. I will never forget it.

2. Simone and I. We are such good travel buddies. Nothing stresses us, we delight in everything we find and show passion, interest and an unquenchable drive to get a feel for how it is to live in a place, not just look at it.
It sometimes means sitting in a park for an hour rather than queuing for a museum, or making our own food and heading to an interesting people-watching place instead of a stuffy restaurant. She lets me bore her with history and places of little interest while I .....well, I guess I do that most of the time but at least I let her rest occasional, that's something.

3. We sat and listened to an old busker singing Italian Opera and hymns while playing a beautiful nylon-string guitar in front of a massive church in the middle of a small court. Picture attached. I tell you it was spine tingling.

4. The weather. It was perfect. Blue skies and warm sun, even during a thunderstorm, at night

5. Went cruising up the canals but didn't get a gondola. we think they are stupid and expensive so we got an all day travel card and went round and round on the ferries instead. No, we are not cheap....just smart. It didn't take us long to work out that paying some fat dude in a fancy canoe $150 an hour was for suckers. It is Venice's answer to visiting Steve Irwin's crocodile farm. not a wise choice when you can sit on the Port Douglas beach and wait for one to come to you. We watched them limp along at a snails pace while their disappointed passengers watched us with envy as we sped past. I know what your thinking. you went to Venice and didn't go on a gondola, you loser. Well maybe, but an hour on a ferry beats an hour on a gondola any day. we made our choice.

6. On our final night in Venice we spent the last of our cash on a memorable meal at a little caféé in a quiet street. We ate spaghetti, drank wine, had some bread and simple salad while guys with piano accordions and violins cruised past and serenaded us. To top it off a passing thunderstorm hit, complete with lightning, loud thunder and a cleansing rain which we sat inches from at our cosy little table out side the restaurant (See Photo).
We walked home with the moonlight reflecting off the wet cobble stones and the day's dust and rubbish washed away

So that's Venice. Not much funny stuff happened, just a great place to be.

Mike