Venice

Venice
As I sit here sipping a glass of wine at a café on the Grand Canal in Venice I am trying to get a grip on all that we have done in the last few days. Rome, The Coliseum, the Spanish Steps, the Vatican, the Sistine chapel, a dozen Churches, a hundred statues, a thousand works of art, and millions of people from all over the world.
We have shopped on the Isle of Capri at Gucci, Fendi and Prada, sipped cappuccino in Naples and dined on octopus in Sorrento. Tasted olives and fig at a farm house in Dubrovnik and climbed the walls of an ancient castle. Now we are in the city of canals and gondolas. I am in Saint Marks square watching people wade through a sea of pigeons as a 5 piece string orchestra plays classical Italian music.
Venice is a city with no cars; transportation is by foot or by boat. Imagine if you were in downtown Santa Rosa and all the asphalt was replaced by canals with tiny boas on them. If you want to get to a friend’s house you must walk over small stone bridges and through tight alleys or take a Vaparosa. (It is like a big city bus on water). We walked the streets for hour’s window shopping the designer stores and small “Mom and Pop” shops that are arranged in no particular order. None of the businesses are very large, the smallest store in the mall would be considered huge in Venice. Each vendor has their own specialty, a soap shop, a shirt shop, gelato store and a jewelry store that specializes in silver next to a store that specializes in gold.
I scored major romance points with my wife when we went on a romantic gondola ride at sunset. Yes it was very touristy but “when in Rome” uhhh Venice it is THE thing to do. You pay the gondolier 100 bucks for a 30 minute tour of the back canals of Venice. The boats are about 15 feet long and just wide enough for two, sitting side by side, on golden embroidered pillows. He hops on the back and starts oaring his way through the water. Ok, my wife loved it, but what they don’t tell you is that you are about 8 inches above the green water that smells slightly of sewage..Ohhhh Romantic.
On the plus side we did see the House of Casanova and the back entrance he used to sneak out to his many romantic conquests. We also saw the house of Marco Polo the famous Italian Explorer. I wonder if he ever got lost on his way home…the canals don’t have any street names.
Well I have got to go, it seems that my wife has discovered another Italian Leather shop and is motioning for more Euros. The man sitting next to me from France was right; men are just “Wallets that Talk”
Ciao Bella