Walkabout: Venice

If Barcelona was about little tastes and experiences, Venice is about big views, big tastes and big crowds. It's about experiencing Italy by a firehose, not a trickle. If you are wondering where much of Europe goes on its vacation, look no further than Venice. No wonder the city is sinking. You can't add a million people to a propped up island and not expect to lose an inch or two every July.

We found the perfect amount of time to experience Venice in July is about 18 hours. We wandered our way in to find the Hotel Moresco, a hotel that's not yet a year old, and enjoyed a glass of prosecco while they checked us in. After quickly dumping our luggage in our rooms, we dove into the city. Somewhere, under layers of tourists posing for updates on their Facebook pages, we saw the Rialto Bridge and the other sites of Venice. 

We found a good way to get around when not just walking was to take the bus, which of course is a boat in Venice. It's about 7 Euros a person and moves faster than the gondola you would have paid 160 Euros for. As they packed us in and the boat swayed from side to side to side again, I couldn't help think that maybe the Costa Concordia wasn't such a fluke after all...that maybe there is a reason that if you study history there isn't a lot of mention about Italy's Navy. Watching the water taxis dodge the bus, the gondolas and each other sort of looked like a water ballet put on by a high school football team. It worked, but it wasn't pretty.

After our kids took in a Da Vinci exhibit and we took in some prosecco, we headed back to the hotel and got cleaned up. Taking pity on us for our overdose of Eurotourists, our hotel manager made arrangements for us to have dinner at a restaurant well off the beaten path, which is an achievement when you are on an island with buses and cruise ships parked around it. There were only eight tables and we were tended to by the owner/chef and what appeared to be his wife and a helper. The restaurant turned out to be a quiet oasis in all of the chaos that's Venice we enjoyed a easy going meal of fresh house-made pastas served simply with a little seafood, some very fresh caprese salad and some balsamic eggplant. Dessert was also not to be missed.

The next day, it was breakfast at the hotel and then off to the train station. We really weren't in Venice long enough to have any great revelations. It's beautiful. You probably should see it once in your life. But, at least in July, it's sort of like seeing Orlando, Florida and thinking you've experienced America. Venice isn't Italy. It's Venice. Take a look, take a taste and then get back on that train.

We've established our next base camp in Tuscany and we can already tell life is a little slower, a lot less crowded and that's just fine with us.