Venice ! What siren music then
Stirred on the shoals and shallow sea,
When that small band of wandering men
First in their dreams imagined thee,
And hung thy lyric splendour high
Between the water and the sky!*
One of the completely unexpected things about my trip to Italy was an opportunity to make a visit to Venice. I asked several of my Italian colleagues what I should do if I only had one day to see something in the region, and every one of them recommended that I head to Venice, which was only a two hour train ride away.
As you exit the train station, you immediately encounter the Grand Canal. The only way to get around Venice is by water; there are no cars in the old part of the city. I bought a twelve-hour ticket for a boat and was motored over to the Piazza San Marco, the heart of old Venice and a tourist hub. I could have spent three days there, easily, and not have seen everything within a fifteen minute walk of the quay. I mostly just spun around, ducked pigeons, and took pictures while grinning like a '57 Buick.
Happy Friday!*from the poem Venice, by Herbert Asquith ( 1917).
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