Europe Travelogue Part 5: Venice

Venice would not have been much different from any other Italian city, if not for the canals and life along them. The city is almost entirely dependent upon them for transportation - there are water buses which ply in fixed routes, water taxis which can be hauled to go wherever one wants, and then there are the Gondolas. While prohibitively expensive, they look very inviting in their glamorous decor and royal ambiance. They take one around a tour of Venice, starting from the main Grand Canal to the narrow lanes and bylanes - passing under little bridges connecting big old houses and palatial buildings. Somewhere on the way, one passes under the bridge made famous as the "Bridge of Sighs" by Lord Byron - passing from the courthouse to the prison, apparently the prisoners last time saw daylight from that bridge. Rialto bridge, giving a pretty good view of the Grand Canal is another well known landmark.

The centre of Venice is undoubtedly the St. Mark's Square. The impressive basilica is the major attraction, and one can get a birds eye view of the square and the city and the little islands from climbing up the bell tower. The square itself is full of pigeons, and they don't hesitate to sit on people's palms if tempted with food.

Venice wrapped up the Italy part of my trip - and it was onward to Paris then. The Venice pictures, like all others, are in my picasaweb album.



(French Chamonix, a beautiful little village, in the foothills of Mont Blanc, is next)

Europe Travelogue Part 3: Pisa and Florence

I initially planned on spending a full day in Florence (which incidentally is called Firenze there, slightly confusing if one does not know it beforehand!), but a train strike in Italy disrupted my plans a bit, and I ended up doing Pisa and Florence on a single day. That of course did not do justice to Florence (Pisa just has the leaning tower, so an hour was more than enough), but at least something was better than nothing!

Italy does not feel like a typical European country in many ways, rather reminded me of india, not only for the history part - the train strike for a day, too many people everywhere and not at all organized, long lines for train reservations or entering any muesum, hugely overpriced stuff near tourist attractions. In fact too long a line prevented me from going atop the leaning tower in PIsa, and resulted in me hurrying through the world famous Uffizi gallery in Florence a couple of hours. Like any other Italian city, Florence skyline is dominated by cathdrals. Walking through narrow roads, suddenly the enormous Duomo cathedral opens up in front of you, and the sheer size of it is almost unbelievable. There are others too, some of them are equally impressive - but somehow the first sight of Duomo left me awestruck.

The photos are here.



(I expect to post the "eternal city", Rome tomorrow)