Venice

Welcome to Venice. It was really warm here, and of course, humid. We got off the train station, and were met with the big canal. Quite a novelty really, being met with a canal minutes from leave the train. People get around in mini-ferries, or water-buses, or "vaporetto". There are not "streets" in Venice, just pathways, some quite narrow. Pull up any map of Venice, and you'll see that it is built like a maze. Alot of paths don't meet at the end. So when your directions say "take the first right", don't think you can get away with taking the second right and find your way around. Some of the pathways are really narrow, like the second picture above.

Besides the pathways, there are lots of mini canals feeding off the main big one. The mini canals can only fit small private boats and gondoliers. There are LOTS of gondoliers. Some of the mini-canals are a bit smelly, as the water doesn't ebb and flow as well as the main canal. The first picture above is an example of the mini canals.

There are LOTS of vaporettos going back and forth. They are also very regular. The vaporetto is operated by 2 people. One drives, and the other throws the rope on the big metal thing at the stops. The third picture is of a vaporetto rope-throwing operator. We took a picture of him (well, BJ took it at my insistence) because I thought that he looked like a chubbier version of Vin Diesel (that one's for you Glenos). BJ doesn't know who Vin Diesel is. That's to her credit I suppose.

Another thing, what I've seen of Italy, can be summed up thusly:
The top 5 most prominent things Italy has:
1) Big old churches
2) Smaller, but just as old statues and monuments
3) Scaffolding on said churches
4) Scaffolding on said statues and monuments
5) Italians

After Venice, BJ and I caught the train to Lucerne (Switzerland).

Okay, here's some scaffolding...


There's a church under there somewhere...