Ahhhh Venice (and Florence)

Before this trip started I was most excited about visiting Venice. It didnt disappoint. Venice was exactly how I imagined it would be in my mind. Its a very beautiful place, similar to any city in Europe but instead of roads they have canals. Its a cool experince wondering the streets there.



[pic: Ahhhh Venice]

Apart from visiting the main center and basilica the thing that I wanted to do most was to get a picture in front of the library/converted church from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Now this is easier said than done, Venice is notoriously difficult to navigate around and I had no idea what the library/church was called! Even after I googled it it was almost impossible to find the area of the city to start looking. Even worse there are literally hundreds of places that look very similar everywhere you go. So its hard to work out whether youre on the right track.

To be honest I pretty much gave up on the idea after searching for about half an hour. Then, the next day when I was wondering around I stumbled upon it. Result! I got a few cool pictures in front of it as well which I am pretty pleased with.



[pic: "tht doesn't look much like a library...looks like a converted church."]

I only spent two nights in Venice and, as beautiful a it is, I was ready to move on. There isnt much to do in terms of tourist attractions and it is the most expensive city in Italy so I was churning through the cash at an alarming rate.

From Venice it was a two and a half hour train ride to Florence. The hostel I stayed in there was realy nice and had...wait for it....AIR CONDITIONING!!!!!! That was an absolute God send as things have been horrendeosly hot in Europe for the last month (in fact I saw a news article that people were wondering around in bikinis in MOSCOW; now thats a heat wave!)

Florence is a very beautiful place as well, probably after Venice the second most beautiful place Ive been to in Italy. I had been there once before but there was much I didnt get to do and see. The highlights were probably the Uffizi gallery, which houses some of the most well known paintings around, including a couple from Leonardo Da Vinci. As an interesting side note, I was bored the other day so Wikipedied Leonardo. Wikipedia told me that only about 15 of his paintings survive today and in the last month and a half Ive seen about 10 of them! Standing in line for an hour and a half to get into the Uffizi was not a highlight though!

Yesterday I went to the museaum that houses Michaelangelos David.



[pic: me posing ridiculously below a replica of Michaelangelo's David]

That too was very impressive as too were the half finished sculptures on either side. That night we (Id made friends with an English girl in the hostel and a New Zealand guy) went to Michaelangelos piazza to view the sunset, which we had been told was a "must do" in Florence. It was absolutely breathtaking and again I have some amazing pictures.



[pic: sunset at the piazza]



[pic: sunset in Florence again; me showing off my guns haha]

After three nights it was time to move on though and Im currently in Bologna. As i got here a few hours ago there isnt much to report yet but watch this space!

Anthony