Lunch in Venice, Italy

OCTOBER 17, 2012

A day trip to Venice, Italy seemed ridiculous on several accounts.  First, it’s Venice, right?  Second, I’m trying to get in the woods, not another overpriced tourist town.  Third, it is a bucket list city for many people and I feel like I should give it a bit more respect than a quick drive by for lunch.  Nonetheless, the girls from South Carolina I met on the train to Ljubjana, Slovenia talked me into it.  They had been there several weeks prior and could not say enough good things about it.  With yet more rain at my new mountain destination of Lake Bled, I thought I’d give it a shot.  Glad I did.

Someone en route told me that if I liked the canals of Amsterdam, I would love Venice.  I love Venice.

Even the doorbells had character

What was so unique about Venice was that, aside from the shops selling trinkets and trash, nothing seemed manufactured or fake and it was all really clean.  The buildings seemed to be decaying at their own natural speed giving them incredible amounts of charm.  Nothing was painted over to be made new and nothing was classed up with anything ornamental to make draw the tourists’ eye.  It was all just awesome.

This one looked way cooler on a topless Nicole Kidman.

One of the shops I was drawn into was the mask shop that produced several of the Venetian masks for the Stanley Kubrick film “Eyes Wide Shut.”  Don’t ask me what the appeal was.  I’m typically not interested in artsy shops of any kind and it’s not like Nicole Kidman was standing there wearing nothing but a mask and an eye patch.  The masks were just intriguing.

I only covered about a third of the city.  Another couple days were in order to take it all in.  Unfortunately, my baggage stowed in a locker in Trieste, Italy and needed to be picked up by 6 pm.  Had my luggage been in Venice I would have likely shelled out the cash to stay for another day or three.  That was it – no pizza, no spaghetti, no gondola ride.  I was off.