Venice, Italy- Nothing like it

June 23, 2006

Whomever decided to build Venice would have loved kayaking! This city is unbelievable with no square inch unused and water streets being the rule, with no cars at all! Only three hours from Silz, Austria where we were staying at Crazy Eddy�s, it made sense to see this city first hand. We arrived in the late afternoon and took a water taxi around the Grand Canal to Rialta Campo where we got out and started our wandering through the streets. The average street is 10 feet wide and the buildings were mostly made between 800ad and 1700 AD and since the place was completely built up by 1800, everything here is old and rich with history. We saw Napoleon�s house, Marco Polo�s house, and Gaddovi�s too. Working clocks that are 800 years old, and wood work on windows, beams, and doors that are unbelievable. We brought only a camera, wallet, and a couple of toothbrushes so we could enjoy town and then figure out where to sleep later. We discovered that pigeons are really fun to feed when you have them in large quantities. We had no idea that they would land on our heads, arms, backs, etc. in order to stage up for some corn. We were all blown away with the uniqueness of the city and wandered aimlessly throughout the streets, ending up in residential areas, dead ends, and finding one cool thing after the next. Dinner was on Grand Canal and Kristine and I just splurged and got the �seafood pasta special for two� not realizing that we each got a lobster to go with it. We got a local Chanti and took a couple of hours to eat. Our next project was sleeping and discovering that in Italy they want your passports to get a room, we had to go all of the way back to the other side of town to get them out of the car, but lucked out by getting this incredible room that slept 4 (we have 5 but we made due). The balcony was awesome and Nick slept outside on it. I was jealous but figured that inside with Kristine is better than outside by myself.

Today we did a little shopping. Kristine and Emily had a mission to get something for themselves, and for family. We wrapped up the whole mission at 3pm with a nice long Gondola ride and lunch, and then a 8 hour drive to Lyon where I am now (it is 1:30 am).

Good night! I need to write this trip down better, because I want to remember all of the cool things that happened!

🙂 EJ