A Gondola Ride in Romantic Venice

Venice, Italy

Around Europe we travel, and into Italy we come. Entering in through the northern border, one motorway would lead to Milan, the other to Venezia (Venice). It was kinda exciting to go to Venice actually, everyone's heard of the gondolas, and the canals, and yes.. Venice is really beautiful. We were kind of fortunate to come during "winter" - turning spring - cos the weather is still kind of nice and cool. Venice when its warmer, can be quite smelly. After all, the canals are like "lang gous", better known as drains.

Venice is known to be a really romantic place, a place of love and where couples travel to for a romantic getaway. So its really nice to have wenqi right by my side while in Venice.

Some Italian Facts:

• It is about 300,000 sq km big with almost 60 million people
  
• Largest Mountain in Europe (shared with France) called Mont Blanc. The Mont Blanc is over 4,000m above sea level. Thats massive.

Economy:

• Needless to say, they have a very strong economy, and one of the main players in Europe.
  
• Companies to come out of Italy include: Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Alpha Romeo, Gucci, United Colours of Benetton, Diesel, Armani... okay.. yes they are all BIG NAME COMPANIES.
  
• Did you know that Armani designed the Police Uniform? Yeah he did. I have a picture with the policemen in Rome. Also, they drive Alpha Romeos as normal patrol cars and Lambos as Traffic Police. They also have Armani shades to go with their uniform. So cool being Italian Police huh.

Politics:

• Similar to Germany, it was once a monarchy, and was united in 1860.
• Before unification, they were city states: Naples (Southern Italy) was a kingdom by itself, Rome was run by the Vatican City.
  
• It was a monarchy until WW2, when a dictator took over. They took sides with Germany in WW2 and he died during the war. After the war, Italy elected Presidents as head-of-states, but now they are just figureheads.

Attractions:

• Italy has a lot to offer because of their history. Obviously most are in Rome, which I'd cover later on. Attractions such as the Colosseum, Pantheon etc
  
• They also have beaches by the Mediterranean Sea and snow resorts on Mont Blanc

People:

• Italian people are really nice. Spending most of my europe trip in Italy, the people there are generally very friendly and more than willing to help even though they speak really little english. Very unlike the French snobs.
  
• They are also very flashy and showy people. haha. Given the fact that armani and gucci and gang all come from italy, its easy to see why they are like that. But its true.. on the streets of italy, its super hard to find one person who dresses shabbily.
  
• Milan is their fashion capital, unfortunately, we didn't go there.
  
• They are also very family oriented people. They get riled up if you insult any member of their family, especially their mothers.

Food:

• What else... pastas, lasagne, spaghetti bolognese, pizzas, gelatos. But although you find these foods everywhere in the world, there is no place like eating it in italy. We had the best spaghetti aglio olio ever in rome.
  
• Did you know that Spaghetti was actually chinese food? Yup, it was invented in China, where Marco Polo visited China, he brought back spaghetti to the Italians.
  
• Pizzas are very simple here, just one or 2 toppings, most famous is the Margherita Pizza which is just Mozerella and Oregano.
  
• They are also very into their wines and Spumante (a type of sparkling wine)

Sports:

• Football. Italians love their football. They won the world cup in 2006 and they are really not shy to show it. Everywhere on the streets you'll find people wearing the Italia jackets or jerseys
  
• They are also into Formula 1, where Italy is home to the Champions Ferrari.

Language:

• they say italian is the language of love, together with the french
  
• call me biased, but i like italian much better.

Ciao!

This is the city of Verona we passed on the way. Many would know of Romeo and Juliet, the play or the movie. It was set in the city of Verona.

The only bridge that leads into the islands where Venice is.

On the ferry to Venice.

On our nice nice Gondola

Murano Glass. Its one of the main exports here. Its really expensive glass and apparently very hardy. It costs like 85 euros for one glass cup.

St Mark's Basilica. This holds the body of St Mark the Evangelist

San Marco's Piazza. Behind me is Napolean's Palace.

Bridge of Sighs. The story behind why its called the bridge of sighs is because of a man named Casanova. Casanova was from Venice and he, as known, was quite a ladies' man. He messed around with quite a lot of women and it became a problem to the church. Rumours had it that he even dabbled with some nuns. Thus, the church ordered for him to be locked up in the prisons and this is the only bridge to get into the prisons. How it got its name was because when it was time for Casanova to go into the prisons, he walked through the bridge and his "women" were all crowding where we are standing now and they collectively "sighed". Yup.

This was the prison that held Casanova. He escaped later on anyway.

One of the many beautiful canals with a beautiful girl to go with it.

Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal. its the main bridge of the city and it links it to the other big island St Polo.
View from the top of the Rialto Bridge.

Piazza San Polo. Its significantly more quiet than in St Marco's island.

Guess who we bumped into? Carey, Nic and Eeling. They are on exchange at Bath, UK, and we are in Manchester. But we met, of all places, in Venice.

another canal.

The accademia in Venice. Its the largest museum and it was hosting a play while we were there.

The accademia bridge. It links St Marco to the island Doudoroso.

Peggy Guggenheim Museum. She was a collector of art mainly of abstract expressions.

Dinner is served. Pizza Margherita.

Piazza San Marco by night.

This is one of the Murano Glass Shops. don't be deceived by the cute little items there. each costs 60 euros and above!

And we had time to step into my favourite shop in Venice, the Ferrari shop.

Finally, just to end of with a video we got from a high class restaurant in Venice. Notice hardly anyone eats there. A normal dinner at the restaurant would cost like 30-40 euros already. A restaurant with a band to "add to the mood" would also "add 10-20 euros more" for your dinner. Enjoy the music!