Saturday, July 7, 2007

Random thoughts and the debunking of myths

Let’s debunk some myths first, shall we?

Myth #1: Venice is unbearably hot during the summer months and the lagoon stinks. Venice is hot during the summer, lots of places are hot during the summer and we never once smelled anything foul at all coming from the lagoon or anywhere else.

Myth #2: Venice is unbearably crowded with tourists during the summer months. Piazza San Marco and the Riva along the Grand Canal is unbearably crowded with tourists during the summer months. The rest of the city is not.

Myth #3: Venice is one of the few – if not the only – place in Italy where you can get bad food. First of all, I have a feeling if you try really hard you can get a bad meal anywhere. In 28 days, I had a total of three or four pretty lousy dinners, maybe one or two not-so-great lunches and not one bad breakfast. More important, we had numerous great and a few truly amazing meals.

Moving on to “random thoughts”…

-if you think cell phone use is ubiquitous in this country, you ain’t seen nothin’ ‘til you get to Italy – from kids to grandmas and grandpas, everyone is on his/her cell phone ALL THE TIME, which includes the people who pilot the boats and row the gondolas making the waterways a very interesting place to be

-Venetian men sing and talk to themselves a lot – Wanda was the first to take note of this

-there are a lot – a LOT! – of dogs in Venice and their owners love them very much and take them everywhere

-if you have the “subway gene,” you will automatically master the vaporetto system; if you don’t, it might take a little while to figure it out

-if you can’t or don’t want to walk up and down a lot – a LOT! – of steps, Venice is not a good choice for you – there are very few elevators in and you will need to negotiate a lot of bridges to move around and really enjoy the city

-Venetians – all Italians, really – are the most stylish people in the world – from kids to grandmas and grandpas, they just look great all the time – Chris calls them “walking works of art”

-Venetians take recycling seriously – they recycle everything because they live on Islands and understand the value of their resources – da ya think we could learn something from them??

-and finally, lest there was any doubt, Orange IS the new Black.

Ciao.

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