La Serenissima

or: Venice revisited.

About two weeks ago we received an email from the uni's bureau for foreign students, which was orgenising a trip to Venice, inviting everybody to join the fun. Since only the transfer from Innsbruck to Venice was organised, we thought, why not spend an afternoon in the mediteranean sun?

Although getting up at 5 a.m. normally is a great obstacle - and so is being on time - we managed it to be at the meeting point at 5:45 a.m. and away we drove to our destination. The whole bunch of people was split up into 4 busses!

We left the bus at Tronchetto, which is the big bus parking lot, and jumped on a vaporetto, one of these boats that take people from A to B in Venice.


(My video looks like a drug-addict's view on Venice because my camera does have little problems mean and fools around all the time. Well, meanwhile its 5th birthday has already past...)

We really tried just to follow our nose to avoid the tourist crowds at Piazza San Marco. At first we found this charming patio:



Like this we were strolling around this town, always avoiding the lanes with too much people. And so it came that we found places we have never been to before, although i have been here twice and Stefan even thrice. When we grew hungry at about 1 p.m. we found a little takeaway where we bought fried frutti di mare (squids and shrimps) and fresh bread which we ate beside a little fountain in a lane's anabranch.
Strolling around like this we found a little café at the "Place of wonders" where we took cappuccio and caffè latte.



In the end there was also an accordion-player playing a tarantella. Beside the café there was a bookshop which sold calendars for 2009 (already!), one was with italian young priests. I can tell you, i could scarcely hold myself from buying one!



When we were already a little tired from walking around and sitting in the sun, we found ourselves at a church by a one of the larger channels and we began to wonder where we could be. So we looked up our location on our map. At first we couldn't find our place, but then it turned out that we reached the northern part of Venice - Ghetto. And funnily in front of the church there were many people beautifully dressed and some security guys as well with plugs in their ears while we were checking our map. Then the bride arrived, also guarded by two security guys. Dunno if they were famous or important people or if this is usual for a wedding in Venice...

Back to our location, which was in fact a little bit far north if you consider the fact that our remeeting-place was at the south. And: the meeting time was 6:10 p.m. and it was by then 4:15 p.m. So we took a quick glimpse at the map looking for the next bridge heading south and headed there. But we didn't make more than 100 metres before we discovered a fleamarket (i love fleamarkets!) situated in a former church. Inside we found three elderly women who talked with us very friendly. They had a clothes, books, jewellery, kitchen stuff etc. all in a tumble and please don't ask how much we bought because they had some really pretty things! We left the place before we could find more ;)

On our way back to the meeting place we took the main tourist route because it was the simplest path to find San Marco - our meeting place was a little walk down beside Canale Grande from San Marco. Luckily at this time Venice isn't so crowded and so we made it in time.

At San Marco we also could make a little shot of me


(on the right handside you can see me 9 years ago, with longer hair and more doves)

You may have a look at our Venice photos in my photo-album