Canal this be Real?

Venice is like a dream where something in the world has radically changed but... It works.  In this case, all cars have been replaced by boats with rumbling motors.  Parking spots become posts driven 15 feet into the underwater earth and boats are tethered to them.  Crosswalks become bridges, so low that the boat drivers have to duck under them.  Instead of taking pictures of buildings, people take pictures of the very streets or, rather, canals.  And everything is beautiful.  Venice is a decaying paradise, but even the chipping paint, fading reliefs, scum-bottomed boats, and abandoned palaces are beautiful.  And yet, it really is a dying city.  Large commercial interests are moving in, swallowing up real estate once owned by mom and pop stores.  Residents are fleeing the stampede of tourists and high price of importing staples from the mainland.  The population is only about 60,000 and is shrinking by 1,000 people per year.  So I'm glad that I got to see Venice while it still exists, or at least before it is forced to change in order to save itself.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Venice is not a melancholy beauty.  It boast vibrant gelaterias and osterias (cafes/restaurants).  Gondoliers with incredible tans lounge in their uniform of horizontal-stripe shirts, black pants, and a straw hat with a black ribbon.  The sun sparkles on the water as tourists bask in the shade of narrow streets.  Josh and I couldn't wait to walk around.  Since we are sweet-toothed tourists in Italy, our first meal was, of course, gelato.  I couldn't wait for josh to try stracciatella and some of my other favorite flavors.  A bit more wandering and we found Osteria da Toni, which boasting 37 pizza flavors, all of which looked delicious.  We sat down and shared a delicious pie, reveling in the chewy glory of fresh-baked crust.

Next, we wandered through the streets, ending up at St. Mark's square to observe the massive church and look out over the water.  The Basilica Patriarcale Di San Marco is a Roman Catholic cathedral and is one of the best known examples of Byzantine architecture.  It is connected to the Doge's palace, making the combined structure huge.  With an interior in the shape of a Greek cross, the cathedral is based on Justinian's basilica in Constantinople.  In front of the cathedral is a large square lined by high end craft stores and restaurants.  Tourists swarm, sitting on any flat surface or milling about seemingly aimlessly.

Since both Josh and I find very touristy places a bit overwhelming, we decided instead to get lost in the small streets of Venice.  We enjoyed overflowing flower boxes, pastel neutral buildings with white accents and terra cotta roofs, wrought iron lamp posts with small curlicue embellishments.  We observed water taxis, mail delivery boats, ambulance boats, and families out for afternoon joyrides.  Despite looking large on our map, the city is actually quite small and we were constantly overestimating how long it would take us to walk between two places.  In fact, I think that we hit most of the islands that first day alone.  That said, we only walked over a fraction of the 400 bridges, but we certainly made a dent.

In true tourist style, we based our afternoon walk on finding a gelateria that Josh had looked up.  We wound our way from island to island, navigating off our badly-printed map with smudged street names.  But we found it! And it was heaven.  Like most top gelaterias, Boutique de Gelato doesn't let you taste the flavors before you purchase.  It's a leap of faith, but they're a pretty safe bet.  The gelato is delicious, so creamy that it makes you stop in your tracks and savor the moment, as all good food should.  It's not out of the way, so definitely make a point of stopping there.  

For dinner, we found a restaurant that Josh had looked up, Osteria al Bacco.  Despite not being a huge fan of fish, Josh was recommending a place famous for its seafood.  We had clams and mussels as a starter (incredible!) and then had fresh pasta with pesto for our meal.  I'm not sure what they do to the food here, but the fresh pasta had an amazing texture as you bit into it and the pesto sauce was incredible.  Josh and I devoured every bite, and he was mopping up the extra sauce with our bread.  It was an indulgent meal by our backpacker standards, but worth every euro cent.  

As we stretched out our meal, hoping to catch a brilliantly-colored sunset, we saw the hint of pink turn to gray-blue and the sky darken ominously.  

We got the check and sprinted, navigating the small twisting streets on the fly, back to our hotel and burst inside as the thunder began to rumble and lightning lit up the sky.  We heard the satisfying sound of fat raindrops plinking on glass as we walked up to our room, and fell asleep to its lullaby.

Spotted: tattoos.  Down calf muscles, arms, back of legs, and everywhere else.  And on magazine stands.  We knew that Italians took their art seriously, but we hasn't realized the modern importance of body art.

Spotted 2: Horrifying as this is, it was everywhere: French fry pizza.