(veh-NETS-eeah)
We traveled from Rome to Venice by overnight train. We had our own sleeping compartment with two tiny bunk beds - still, we both squeezed in the bottom bed, just to be together. Before falling asleep, we spent some time watching the moonlit country-side go by, outside our window - it was magical.
We arrived in Venice very early in the morning, while the tourists were still asleep, so we got to enjoy a unique view of this town.
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We checked into the "Casa San Marco" Hotel. It was a wonderful place, but is was impossible to find: we looked for it for the good part of one hour. It was on an alley no wider than our luggage, none of the locals had heard of it and it had a standard residential front door with only a tiny sign!
Venice is built on a group of islands on the estuary of the Po river, mostly on reclaimed land. You travel from island to island, and along each island, by boat ("Vaporetto").
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Venice is a three-dimentional labyrinth of alleys and canals. There are no vehicles in the alleys: you walk everywhere (no such thing as a fat Venetian). And the canals have small barges, and water-taxis...
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...and, yes, gondolas. It's very quiet in Venice.
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The "Gran Canal" crosses the heart of Venice. It is lined with shops, gondola hitches, restaurants, and high class hotels.
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We visited the small island of Murano, famous for its glass factories. On top of the fact that it was already so hot, the glass factories were truly unbearable, so, sorry, but we didn't take any pictures of the glass-blowing demonstrations.
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