This city is so picturesque. It's a great mix of a pedestrian style city and a leisure life by "the water", where people rely on boats instead of cars. Your taxi isn't the usual European choice of Mercedes Benz but instead, a slow-moving speed boat. A bus is a water bus, which runs every 10 minutes throughout the day and night. Every so often, an ambulance boat would speed by and it hits you...this city really does operate entirely by water!
Every corner there's a bridge with an amazing view of the canal! There are long corridors of buildings and very narrow streets. People live above the stores and thousands of tourists below. Their homes have petunias in window boxes above you. The people are friendly and accommodating, probably because they're used to the visitors. The summer is the busiest time of year for tourism which was evident in all of the people I saw and languages I heard!
Which made me wonder.... How many people ACTUALLY live here though? I saw a university but no primary schools, no movie theatre, no everyday life stuff. I knew that there's a neighboring town on land called Venezia Mestre, so perhaps the citizens lived there? I wasn't sure so I looked it up!
Venezia facts:
1. The population of Venice Italy is 270,660 as of April 2010.
2. Venice has a higher population of women than men; men 47.4%, women 52.6%.
3. There are 2 movie theatres.
4. Europeans travel a ton in August so I probably didn't see many native Venetians.
The weather was perfect. We walked around Piazza San Marco, visited churches, bought some murano glass (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murano_glass), chased pigeons, meandered. All throughout our Italian excursion, we've been rushing here & there, making sure that all sites were seen & digested but in Venice, we walked around without a purpose for a change...it was lovely.
If you like the sight of water, seafood and walking, you'll love Venice!
OXOX,
*M*
The train from Florence takes you right onto the main Venice island:
Just a view from one of the city's random bridges:
Taking a photo break with my little cousin-to-be:
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