Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Venice Tues Nov 3

I am amazed at how unique Venice is!  I'm not sure if I love it or not but I can say it's unlike any other place I've ever seen. We arrived yesterday, so today was our first full day. I didn't have a great start because when I entered my hotel room yesterday there was a terrible odor. I had a friend & our guide smell it to see if they agreed & they did. We tried to get another room but the hotel said it was full. My Italian guide said if I leave the window open it could help a lot & sure enough it has. ( I can speculate with you later about the possible causes). Anyway I decided to stay in the room & I have kept the window open all the time.  It's pretty cold at night but the blankets are warm.  C' est la vie.

So about Venice:
We didn't see much last night but today we got around a lot.  At the top of the list was the gondola ride.  It was a cool but bright, sunny day so we were very fortunate.  We had 5 boats together for our group. I can say the gondoliers gave us zero attention but their water skills were excellent. We all enjoyed it.  I took a ton of pictures & videos. We also took the water bus for sightseeing& visited some historical sites.
The oddest thing to me is that when we walk around all we do is see other tourists. I know it's the part of town, but this really feels like walking around Disneyland minus Micky.  The population here has dropped ( according to our lecturer) so to me so far it hardly feels like Italy. But of course the physical attributes (  canals & architecture ) are amazing.

I'm exhausted right now & need to sleep cuz tomorrow is a busy day. We have 2 more days in the group, but while they all leave Friday morning, I don't fly till Fri night so I'll have more time here.

Nightee night.
Jane

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