Traveling Summer Part 3: Venice, Italy

In Italian the flag is known as Il Tricolore. The colours have several different meanings- hope, faith, and charity or hills, mountains, and bloody war of independence are just some of the possible meanings.

We started our Great Balkan Adventure by flying to Venice, Italy. Many a PCVs from MK have done this trip and almost all (at least as of lately) start their trip in Venice due to Wizz Air's amazing deals on flights (only 20 euros). This was the first time I had ever flown on Wizz Air and I can't say I am necessarily excited to be a repeat customer. Because they are a budget airline, you have to pay for every little extra thing, including checking in at the airport. They monitored the luggage you brought on quite closely- to the point of, I was not allowed to carry my purse and a carry-on on board unless I could prove that my purse could fit inside my carry-on. But I guess when you are paying only 20 euros for the flight, you can't expect a whole lot.

It is a relatively short flight from Skopje to Venice, however it was made much longer by all the crying children and the pilot's inability to land the plane smoothly. It was a little rainy in Treviso, which played a role I am sure, but it was the second worst landing of my life and the worst landing Phil has been through. There were a lot of feelings of loosing your stomach and as expected, a plane full of people who cheered when we touched the ground.

After landing, we boarded a bus and headed into Venice. Since we had less than 24 hours there, we wanted to make the most of our time and quickly found the hotel and went out exploring. Picture can tell you far more than I can, so as usual, I will let them do the talking.

Oh, but remember than rainy landing we had? The sprinkles soon turned to drizzle, which turned to rain, and then downpour. And of course we left our umbrellas at the hotel. E la vita.

The Grand Canal

Another Grand Canal photo

Such narrow waterways

The famous gondolas- we didn't ride in one as they were going for 80 euros a ride and we are poor Peace Corps Volunteers!

Phil clearly is mocking my desire to take photos.

It is hard not to take a million pictures in Venice.

Cool buildings were everywhere!

I can't even begin to grasp just how much money these men must make each day.

St. Mark's

Now the real mocking starts. However, I told him this was going on my blog, so he has to live with it.

Bell Tower at St. Mark's.

Another view of St. Mark's.

The pigeons were everywhere and when some man put corn in Phil's hands, the birds flocked. There were many pictures of this, but this is my favourite. If you look closely, you can see the pigeon on Phil's head just decided it was time to relieve itself on his forehead. I really am a great girlfriend- the mocking was followed by a wet wipe.

A boat traffic jam.

Rialto Bridge.

One of the hundreds of small bridges Venice is filled with.

One final look at Venice before we headed for the bus to Ljubljana.