Venice: A City for Many, But Not Us

Another update for you all, on the same day.  Yes, we have been busy little bees over here in Budapest, but the price of the internet is quite affordable, so why not play catch up.

Ah Venice, what can we say about this city?  It sure had its moments, observe exhibit A:

Venice and one of it's lovely canals

Seeing canals like this definitely impressed us.  Never have we seen a city so unique.  The entire thing is on a lagoon, without any roads for cars.  Everyone uses boats or their feet to get around, including the ambulances.

Don't worry, just adding flair to the pic

Seeing querky little things like this ambulance and canals like the one above, tipped the scale in favor of Venice for us.  In addition to these things, we saw St. Mark's Square, flooded and unflooded.  Both were impressive.  When St. Marks flooded, everyone took off their shoes and walked barefoot through the square, or strapped on a pair of rubber boots.  The fancily dressed waiters did this as well.  It was a great sight to see, all those nicely dressed Italian waiters in their white tuxeudos, bowties, black slacks and brown rubber boots. 

St. Mark's, barefoot style

Fording the flooded streets of Venice on our way to St. Marks

If only the coffee that they served did not cost 6 euros a cup.  Which leads us into our real opinions of Venice.  Readers beware, at this point our entry is not going to be bubbly and feel good anymore like the stuff you find in the guidebooks.  Or like this pose Jessie is striking on our first day in Venice, before the grim reality set in.

Venice wooed Jessie at first, if only she knew it made for a really bad second date

Ok, for all those still with us.  In our opinions only, and not of the people, or anyone from the area (Jessie's Italian relatives), because all the people we met in Venice were great, but the place itself straight up sucked for us, and our budget.  Everything is overpriced, crowded, flooded half the time, and seems about 75% abandonded.

It took us forever to walk to that bridge in the right upperhand corner

More crowds, and a headache waiting to happen

Both Jessie and this dog were not fans of the flooding or the crowds

To illustrate how much we disliked this place, on our last day in Venice, our train to Budapest did not leave until 9PM, but that did not stop us from choosing to march 40 minutes up to the train station in the middle of a horrendous downpour 8 hours before our train left.  We did not even have books or cards to entertain us at the station, just walls to stair at, and yes, that was fine with us.  At the train station, we made a friend who had been waiting since 11 that morning for her 9PM train, because she too was sick of Venice and decided that her book was better.

Waves attacking Nathan on his way to the sights

A lot of the city, in our opinions, does not look anything like the calendars or guidebooks depict it as. 

Jessie is looking for the Venice of the guidebooks, but is not having much luck

Graffiti is everywhere.  Many first floors are abandoned because of the regular flooding.

No one is home

And at night, it looks downright creepy in places.

The guidebooks never mentioned this canal

Jessie and I both thought Dracula was about to pop out

So sorry to say all this if any of you have a love affair with Venice, but hey, that is wonderful that you found beauty out of something, and next time you return there will be two less American tourists to get in your way.  Different strokes for different folks.  For us, Venice just didn't do it.  On our last day, the universe gave us a sign showing that this place is not our cup of tea, in the form of pigeon shit, on Nathan's head.

Damn you, you little pooping pigeon

We like Budapest more.

Ciao,
Jessie and Nathan