Experiencing Venice

Have you ever had an emotional outburst that was equal parts joy and anger? Today I had one. I woke up early and was about to go to breakfast when I couldn't find the money belt. I looked everywhere and thought I had left it at one of the tables outside the bar where we had dinner the night before. I eventually got Whitney up and we walked to reception to weigh our options. We didn't check the room because I assured her "I literally cavity-searched this whole room!" We were told to wait until Draco the barman woke up and he would probably have it, because people lose their wallets around the bar quite often. Several hours later, I was lying in my bed, mentally reviewing the events of the previous night, when I realized I hadn't left it outside the bar and therefore it must be in the room. It was in my suitcase and we decided to go to Venice.
We met a cool couple on the bus to Venice (our site is 20 minutes outside Venice) who had a little baby Yorkie and taught English in Spain. The guy was Spanish and he asked us if we had been to vegas and seen the fake, indoor, Venetian Casino. We couldn't remember, but we did find some good and bad similarities between Vegas and Venice. Both are beautiful, packed, expensive, hot, materialistic, and seem devoid of locals. Unfortunately, one characteristic of the city dominated all others: The Heat. It was 90 by the time we got up and I wouldn't be surprised if it got over 100 while we were in Venice in the late afternoon. This was not simply summer heat; it was the kind of heat that had us legitimately considering jumping into the filthy Venice canals. It had us pouring straw-fulls of water down our backs, sitting next to trash cans just to get some shade, and rationalizing a $4 slushie.
It is hard to do anything when it is as hot as it was, much less walk around in a foreign city and squint at landmarks. However, we did just that, and some of the sights were well worth it. The Piazza San Marco, which is the city's main tourist attraction, was full of pigeons and tourists and surrounded by high-end shops like Bulgari, Dolce & Gabanna, Chanel, etc. The associated Basillica was also very beautiful, but like most of Europe's sights, it was being renovated. We then turned south, and headed to the boardwalk for some people/boat-watching and some dinner.
We have been pretty frugal this trip, but because we were under-budget by quite a bit for the day, we decided to have a sit-down dinner on the edge of the canal. It was the worst restaurant meal we have had in Europe and the worst $27 we have spent so far. We didn't order sodas because they were $8 each, we ordered the cheapest pasta dishes at $11 each, and they had a $2.50 "cover charge" for a dining experience that was only actually covered by an umbrella, and that charge was per person. The worst part was, we were both dissapointed by traditional Italian dishes (Carbonara for me and Canneloni with ricotta and spinach) that are pretty hard to screw up. Some of my noodles were crunchy like they had been sitting out, and Whitney's was simply flavorless.
During our meal, we were treated to some beautiful views of the sunset, and rich people milling about in thousand-dollar outfits. After our dinner, we were saved by another lemonade slushie, and then took turns pouring cold water down each other's backs. We decided that even though we had planned to stay for the fireworks celebration of the end of the Plague, we didn't want to have to try and kill four and a half hours in what was still 90 degree weather, then make our way back through Venice at midnight while still missing half of the celebration due to our bus schedule. We decided to get home and just relax in our 58 degree cabin and take cold showers. I would like to say that in one of the most confusing cities in the world (very few street signs and no main avenues) I used my skills to get us back through Venice without any wrong turns, partially making up for this morning's debacle. However, it turned out that Venice was so hot and so expensive that we were glad we didn't spend any more time there than we did.
All in all, Venice is a rich, old, beautiful piece of tourist flypaper, and although we're glad we saw it, we are anticipating much more from the rest of Italy. Thanks for reading and look for tales of gladiators, stray cats, gelatto and more from Roma.