From Bolzano, Italy, we took a long sweltering ride to the outskirts of Venice. That was where we had to drop off the car. From there we took a train into the actual city of Venice. Venice is actually a collection of islands in the middle of a bay. The train had to go past a lot of shallow mucky water to get to the Venice islands.
When we got off the train in Venice, it was very dirty, but not as dirty as India. We went out of the train station and let our Dad find his bearings. He’d been to Venice before and knew how to get around. We considered taking a taxi/gondola, but those were 100-200€ (175-300$) from where we were!
In the end, we walked to our hotel. It was very difficult trying to find our way through the dark small canals and streets. The key is to look up to find the street signs. Eventually we found our hotel. Even though we found it, we had to wait thirty minutes until the lady came to the door to let us in.
The lady was very nice and she showed us everything on a map. Our room was small but good. The toilet was tiny for some reason. Everything inside was very old.
That night we explored the town. There were bridges everywhere. This gave me the idea to count bridges. Someone said that there was over 400 different bridges in Venice. From then on, I counted all the bridges I went over without duplicates.
bridges
The next day we went to Piazzo San Marco. It was very cool. There was marble every where. It was also interesting because the piazzo was covered with water in some area. This is because Venice is sinking and the tide was high at that time. That day, I also got a lot of bridges done. We got to see all sorts of cool alleyways. That night we also found a cool feather pen, called a quill, that I liked. I wanted to buy it.
On our last day, we were leaving very late. Emma and I got to navigate the whole day! First we went to the fruit market were I finally got RASPBERRIES! Then we went down some more cool streets and canals.
fish market
That day, I went over big bridges, small bridges, wide bridges, narrow bridges, long bridges, short bridges, flat bridges and arched bridges. They were made out of stone, wood, marble and concrete. The whole time I was in Venice, I went over 121 bridges. That was more than 25% of all the bridges in Venice. We marked them on a map to make sure that we didn’t count any twice.
another bridge
me and my bridges map
Later in the afternoon, Emma and I went to a windy point were we could escape the heat. It had been very hot in Venice. We even found a park were we could relax and play. We had so much fun.
On our way back from the park, we went to find the quill that I liked. It was really hard finding the same store again. The streets in Venice are crazy. We did find it in the end, and I was able to buy my quill.
Then we went on a gondola tour. Our guy was so good. Every time he turned the boat, he missed the wall by barely an inch. He was also really funny. It was nice to see Venice from another angle. When it was over, we walked back to get our bags.
gondola
Then we hopped on the over night train to take us to Austria.
Tumbling Weeds 