Venice!

The Venetian bus system.

Before I go into our time in this beautiful and extraordinary city, let me explain a little bit about how it was created. Well, around 600 A.D. after the fall of the Roman Empire marauding barbarians were wreaking all sorts of havoc up and down the Italian peninsula and actually most of Europe. Many fishing villages in the north of Italy decided to abandon their villages and flee to the relative safety of the marshes and lagoon several miles away. They nailed pilings into the soggy ground upon which they built platforms for houses and instead of streets they used canals for transportation and trading purposes and a series of bridges crisscrossing them. They christened this new city “Venice” or “the Floating City”. Today the city of Venice is comprised of 118 small islands.  Its architectural marvels and uniqueness still remain one of a kind.

We flew into Venice around 6 A.M. our time or about 3 P.M. Venice time. In total it had taken us over 27 hours to get from my bed to our Venetian apartment. I didn’t even have the energy to gaze in amazement at the canals and stunning Venetian buildings. But that night I sure did. After an hour long at nap we hit the streets, our apartment was just a few blocks from St. Marks Square. I walked around in stupefied amazement as we strolled through the square. On one side was the famous St. Marks Basilica and on another was the famous wing built by Napoleon. And on yet another side was the Doge’s palace where the Venetian empire was ruled from and the most wealthy and influential people (of the time) lived. In between the Doges palace and Napoleon’s wing, the square opened up to the shimmering sea. The moon cast its rays down in harmonious glory onto the cresting waves, and out in the distance were the gondoliers.  Dressed in blue and white striped uniforms, their paddles sailed through the glassy water, making scarcely a ripple as they pushed them to and fro.  

It was all so magical and unbelievable that it was hard to take it all in, especially after hardly sleeping in 48 hours. The rest of the night passed in a blur, we had dinner at a small restaurant and toasted our successful voyage. Then we meandered back through the winding streets until we found our home, brushed our teeth and as soon as my head touched the pillow, lights out.