Venice, Italy - Venice

For the next couple of days we took trips into Venice, slowly getting ourselves lost in all of the narrow streets, seeing the sights that Venice is famous for (a ferry down the Grand Canal, Piazza San Marco complete with its scaffolding from a Peter Gabriel concert, a short Gondola ride – across the river costs 50 cents as opposed to the 100 or more euros for an hour! – and all of the back alleys and side streets that seemingly never end!). The street signs seem designed to confuse, although in their own way they no doubt do a great job of dispersing the tourists.

Venice does have some indescribable appeal, even though the city and river systems are more likely to be home to three-eyed fish than anything else, the whole place is sinking into the muck, the fake bag merchants assault you at every turn and the pigeons are seemingly more welcome than the tourists. There is something appealing about the cities stubborn insistence that it can retain the charm of yesteryear, despite the modern day population flooding the city, in the region of 20 million visitors per annum.