Venice Calling…

I’m back to London, older, wiser and happier.

I had a blast in Venice. The place is amazing. It has a unique character I haven’t seen anywhere else during my few trips. The streets, if you can call them that since they are so tiny, create a maze of small alleys, bridges, churches and small restaurants. I wasn’t that impressed with the city centre, the San Marco’s square, as I was by the rest of Venice. We loved walking around, taking pictures (I only took around 300 of them), watching the boats/gondolas passing by and enjoying the weather and food.

Luckily for us, without even knowing about it or planning it, we arrived in Venice the last day of the carnival. We followed the big crowds to the city centre and we saw the amazing costumes they were wearing. I’m attaching to you some of the pictures I took just the first day. I’ll create a second post for the rest of the days. These people really enjoy and live for the Carnival.

Unfortunately, the place for its uniqueness and small size is amazingly expensive. You have to really be careful what to order and from where. Just an espresso coffee in San Marco’s square is about €8.4 (11.5$)! We tried to find smaller restaurants outside the city centre that looked like places locals would go. We also tried to speak Italian and act the part. The places we found were amazing, the food delicious, in quantity and fresh ingredients. I simply love Italian food…

These people dress up magnificently and simply stand on San Marco's square for the tourists to take picture of them. They are street artists without asking for money:

These students were dressed like 'Tetris' blocks taking various forms. They were laughing so much and us with them...

There were many shops selling extravagant masks like these... There were so colourfull!