I just spent three days in Venice; jealous? I had never been there before and was prepared to be impressed as my brother and my Mom both can not stop gushing whenever the destinations comes up in conversation. I thought I was prepared but Venice is simply beyond imagination. Words fail to describe it but I am going to try but here is a link to the photos so you can see how great it is. It is a marvelous city with history and beauty, real people and tourists, canals and colored stucco, Prada stores and Africans selling fakes on the street corner. Something that occurred to me was that Venice is not only sinking but in a state of decay; this does not sound romantic but really it just adds to the character of the place. Italy to me seems to glitter; from outlandish lip liner and cheap gold jewelry to real fur and diamonds galore. Evan the cleaning ladies wear designer glasses which baffles me to no end. Venice is striking not only for the buildings, piazzas, and bridges everyone knows so well but for the normal streets, alleyways, canals with laundry fluttering in the breeze, wrinkled Italian Grandmothers leaning out their windows keeping an eye on the passers bye, and Gondola men trying to cajole tourists into their sleek little boats.

I might only be suited for travel in the developing world because I love to shop. This is not new development and it turned out okay because Venice is a real live maze. I have a feeling even true died in the wool Venetians get lost and have trouble navigating. I am thankful for the maze because every time I got really close to buying something I would walk by with the idea that I would think about my purchase and come back and buy it. I never could come back because I never could figure out where I was; sorry no souvenirs from Venice.

There was no game plan for Venice which was great, my roommate Bridget and I tootled around. We saw St. Marcs which is a cathedral of immense proportions with the most incredible gold leaf mosaics. There are more churches in Venice than I have ever seen; the city of Venice realized this and churches are used as art galleries, architecture exhibits, and occasionally as churches. Bridget and I did some sight seeing together before going are separate ways for the day. Bridget wanted to people watch and I wanted to check out more museums. I discovered the Peggy Guggenheim Museum the first day I was in the city and the more I learned about her the more I wanted to visit. Peggy Guggenheim was an avid collector of European and American art of the first half of the 20th century and is housed in her former home located on the Grand Canal. I got to see my first ever Kandinsky and Pollack which was interesting and Picasso and Dali which I always get a kick out of.

Venice is completely dependent and serviced by boats. Groceries come in on a freighter, laundry and building materials get hauled in and out, and garbage is collected and delivered at the garbage boat. The city of Venice is flanked by several other canal filled islands. I took a trip out to Murano, the sight of true Venetian glass making. The town s not as picturesque as Venice, a little rougher around the edges and a little more decayed. The town is filled with glass stores selling everything from chandeliers to glass beads. The cities public art includes a larger than life glass abacus and a sculpture that I would describe as what fireworks would look like if they were frozen in glass. The attention to detail and craftsmanship is impressive but the price tag is just a little too high at this time in my life. There is a lack of maze like streets so I just had to keep reminding myself that one day I would b back and buy enough glass to have a house lit by Venetian Glass sconces. To get my fill of Venetian glass I visited Museo Vetrario. I never thought of glass as art before but the fact that someone can take sand and some minerals and toss it in a hot oven and turn it into practically anything brings glass to a whole new level as far as I am concerned. The museum unfortunately had no place to actually view glass being blown so I sought out a factory. I stumbled upon one and got to see the real process up close; the men were working in shorts and seemed to have no fear of the molten glass they were working with. A blob of fire was rolled and coddled, handled delicately but expertly until the blob turned into a vase or a dish or some other fantastically curvy glass object. Check out my Murano Island photos here.

One cannot go to Venice without a Gondola ride in my opinion and with just hours left on the Venice portion of our Italy trip I literally tracked down a Gondolier with my slightly exasperated roommate trailing behind. I found on willing to take us to the train station but we had to meet him at the specific launch point. You may have assumed that my Italian skills are phenomenal but really I spoke a hybrid of Italian and Spanish which did not translate well especially when receiving gondolier directions. We managed to finally link up and pile into the Gondola with our exploding backpacks and lunch for the train. Most envision their Gondola ride as romantic; I will always remember how the gondolier proceeded to greet or verbally assault every person we passed along the canal. He literally knew everybody we passed which I thought was hilarious. He did wear the striped shirt and the hat though sadly he refrained from singing. We seemed to be crashing into almost every boat in the Grand Canal but we made it unscathed to the train station; I would do it again in a heart beat.