The City of Water, this Time with Fewer People

I had spent a weekend in Venice earlier with friends for the Carnival which was amazing! But going back to Venice without the horrific crowds of people was wonderful also!

Mom really wanted to see the city, she had said that it just sounded so different and unique she really wanted to be able to see the place. So we made it our next stop together. The first thing that we did was just to take a Vaporetto, or water bus, ride along the Grand Canal and see the general city. I had some pages from a guidebook that I had ripped out, telling what many of the buildings were along the way (mostly gothic and baroque style palaces, if I remember correctly). I want to mention that in Venice, especially noticeable along the Grand Canal, the buildings literally come right up to the water, often without even a dock or a sidewalk separating the two. I didn't mention this before because for some reason it didn't really surprise or impress me until Mom mentioned that she hadn't expected to see that.

We spent our short time in Venice wandering, seeing some of the main sights, and shopping at the famous glass shops all over the city. The Frari Basilica had some amazing works of art namely by Titian (the most famous Venician artist), and of course a sculpture by Donatello. We spent a couple of hours in the Ducal Palace (which was amazing to see but also explained some of the government of the time) and walked through the fish market. As we were running out of time, I went into St. Mark's Basilica (which had been at the top of my list for Venice) because Mom still wanted to do some more shopping. I actually don't think that I've ever seen her that excited in a store in my life - Mom, I never have realized how much you love blown glass! Anyway, the basilica was really a sight to see, the entire ceiling was covered in beautiful gold mosaics, while the floor was covered in marble ones. You could go up onto a balcony overlooking the main alter, which actually brought you right next some of the mosaic work on the ceiling, demonstrating how detailed it was and how small each individual piece actually was. Every tile was no bigger than my fingernail, and some were so tiny they seemed to be just shards.

All in all, Venice was just a fun as it had been during carnival, but different. It's a tourist city, so it was still insanely crowded, but compared to the carnival weekend, it felt like you could do cartwheels down the middle of the streets without hitting anyone. (Don't try it because you probably couldn't without knocking out a fellow tourist, it just relatively felt like that!) But it definitely wasn't as lively as before, and I did miss some of the characters wandering through the narrow paths. I'm just glad that I had a chance to see both sides of beautiful Venice.