Venice Day 2 Part 1

Despite the rain, our plan today is to explore Venice by walking around.

We left our hotel in the morning and saw a bunch of people pushing these carts around town. There are no land based motor vehicles so all the delivers are done by human power.

Bellinis are only 3 Euros in the stores.

Breakfast. Shrimp on a skewer and latte. Wait, make that imitation shrimp on a skewer. I was disappointed.

So, that’s what the wheelie bars were for, climbing stairs. Ingenious.

Man, they really do move everything by man power. What goes in must come out. Both deliveries and trash by get in and out by man power.

St. Mark’s Square in the wet.

The posse for the next 9 days.

First real line I had to wait in. It’s for getting into St. Mark’s Basilica.

Technically, no photos or videos of any kind. You also can’t wear shorts and sleeveless shirts.

Except you get inside and EVERYONE has their camera out taking photos with flash of everything. I didn’t even notice a single guard inside to enforce the rules. Oh well, I guess my camera is coming out as well.

Kind of unnerving walking in the basilica. Hard to see but in the picture above, but it shows that the floor of the cathedral has been very heavily distorted from the ground settling differently. Venice as a whole has been sinking since it’s been built and the heavy cathedral may have it worse than most other buildings. How is this thing still standing with the floors all falling in every different way?

You see how the column on the left seem to be leaning sideways? Yeah, that’s not the camera angle. It really has a obvious lean to it. How are they still allowing people to walk in here with the building leaning sideways?

Cool floors though.

Is this like the no pictures rule?

Yup. Here’s an guide talking away to her group. No one gives a shit. On top of everything, there’s a loud speaker in the church just blasting away on something in Italian. Not so sacred of a place.

Gold colored mosaics. I still love St. Peter’s Basilica the best so far.

Photo of Coca Cola spelled out with pigeons. Did the pigeons also leave traces of shit that spelled out Coca Cola?

Peppers.

I thought that the whole idea of construction netting was to catch debris, and not to make a fancy decoration out of it?

Man power carries laundries from the individual hotels/buildings, and then they go onto the boats that take them offsite for washing.

Grocery store to stock up on supplies.

Grocery baskets that also double as carts.

Came back to our hotel room after resupplying and in less than a minute, EF was passed out.

Dude! We are in Venice, no time to sleep, let’s head on out again for some lunch and then explore.

Not sure what his story is. Clean guy with a Polo shirt asking for money. Lost his wallet?

They have these perpetual running water fountains here as well.

We went to the Northern parts of the islands in search of lunch and this area has less apparel shops. Instead, they’ve got more bars and little boutique shops over here. There is also the occasional empty narrow street up here as well.

Lunch spot. This was in Rick Steve’s guidebook for being well priced and having great meatballs.

5 Euro for half a liter of wine. Sign us up! We had to try both white and red, for which our waiter made fun of us for mixing the two wines.

The famous meatballs.

Did live up to expectations and we all enjoyed them very much.

Mixed vegetable appetizer. I love how they actually serve a great variety of vegetables over here instead of in the States where it’s almost always broccoli and carrots. The weird things on the left are actually artichoke hearts.

Octopus.

Cheers!

Well fed and well drank!

Yeah, we were well drank…

Goth in Venice. She seemed to have a loving family, so why go goth on us?

Since there were still rain clouds in the area all day today, it made for some dramatic photos.

All the apparel shops on the Southern parts of the islands have been replaced by mask shops.

Time for a pick me up after lunch.

Shot of espresso.

Followed by shots of Jack Daniels. Ugh, why are we doing this…

Obedient dogs waiting outside the grocery store for their owners.

So tired, but my ass end isn’t.

Love the clouds today.

This couple looked so unhappy as they rode the Gondola. Hating life, baby.

Seriously, the clouds make the pictures today.

I can’t believe these knockoff sellers actually do make sales.

Some of the very rarely seen trees in Venice. I’ve maybe seen 10 trees in the whole time I was here.

Holy Shit, look at those awesome clouds! It’s not me, it’s not the camera, it’s the clouds. This is definitely my second favorite photo after the photo of St. Peter’s Square from St. Peter’s Cupola.

Narrow streets provide for Spiderman moves. Since the whole city is weathering away, it means that the walls are weathering away as well, which makes for a tough climb because it literally crumbles under you.