Venezia. YOLO!

FINALLY! I have been wanting to go to Venezia since I did a report on this magical city of canals and gondolas when I was just a little girl (I know, just a few years ago!).

True: I spent a whole year in Italy 10 years ago and never went to Venice. I was 18 and more focused on partying every weekend. Give a girl a break.

But the stars aligned this year, and one of my best friends (Chica!), was sent to Venice for work. Obviously, I had to go meet her, and we spent an awesome weekend riding crowded boats, eating amazing food, climbing many stairs, and getting lost in Venice. Her parents came with her, so I felt like I had a really important role and could play translator for the weekend. Totally unnecessary. EVERYONE speaks English in Venice. Even if you speak to them in Italian. And because I'm stubborn, I kept replying in Italian... and they kept replying in English. I'm nothing if not persistent.

I'm on a boat!

When I arrived on Saturday, I left the station for my first look at Venezia. Beaut. About 30 seconds after I took this photo, the skies opened and the square emptied out. Side bar - I'll admit that the weather here is much better than Vancouver in terms of how many days it rains, but on the other hand, the way it rains here is sometimes a bit of a shocker. One minute it's dry, and the next minute you're drenched if you're unlucky enough to be caught without cover. It only lasts for 10 minutes or so, but it happens all the time!

Pre-Rainstorm

Saturday was pretty rainy, but at least that meant fewer tourists. Sunday was a gorgeous day, but Piazza San Marco (please don't call it St. Mark's square) was PACKED. As was the Rialto bridge and market areas.

The Rialto bridge would be covered in graffiti...

The picture doesn't really capture the crowds, but they were there!

Oh, and it was high tide on Sunday! This helped us understand what we thought were runways all over the little alleys. In fact, they're elevated walkways for when the city really floods. I prefer to remember them as runways though. Here's the flooding that we saw, but the article shows it was much worse just a few days later!

Water, water, everywhere!

It was such a great weekend, but I'll definitely be trying to get back to Venice one weekend when the tourist crowds have died down a little bit. I fell in love with the little things, like narrow winding alleys, alleys that actually appear to get narrower at the top, and gems of buildings like the one on the middle left.

Word of the weekend: YOLO