What I have been up to: Just another Venice Post

{„Venice forces you to slow down. Of course, we have smartphones here and all the technology, but the structure of the city makes it impossible to get into the rush you have in a big city"...}

...explains our guide Virgina while we are following her through hidden alleyways and over crooked bridges, listening to stories of Giacomo Casanova and the Golden days of Venice. And it is true: You have mainly two ways to get around the city, by foot or by boat. And no matter how late you are running, as soon as you are standing on the Vaporetto platform, watching the shore while the waves are rocking the boat from side to side, you have no chance, but to find calmness.

Our lovely tourguide Virgina

These days the city is covered in a layer of fog, humid and cold, and sometimes so thick you feel like you can actually touch it. Only last Monday, the last day that we spent on our holiday, the sky was suddenly blue and immediately it was so warm, you could just walk around in a sweater. Fortunately that was the day where we also did the gondola trip on the grand canal and its side passages – on a gondola that happened to be named after me, which I appreciated very much, thank you. After that we went on to the tour with our guide Virgina, which was awesome (and not only because she looked great, spoke every language fluent and knew everything about anything). Every few steps she seemed to meet someone and told us about how, for the only 57 000 "real" Venetians, this place is pretty much like a village.

In the evening it was time to head off to Giudecca, so we left the lights of San Marque`s square behind. Getting out four stations later was like being thrown into another world, no people, no bright lights, but still water and old houses, lining up along the promenade. Wouldn`t it have been for the old man with the dog and the nice barkeeper with the black curly hair we never would have made it to our destination - but we did. And that is where I am sitting now, in a double bedroom with a lovely roommate and a mind full of new impressions. One week of the language course I am taking until Uni is starting next month has already passed, and I try to get as much as I can out of it. It is exhausting at times, but every sentence I understand, on the street or in the supermarket, in return is so rewarding. 

Stillness though, I have so far only found when I am alone on a boat, watching the waves. There was a german family next to me today on the Vaporetto back to the Island. "I wonder why Venice has never been defeated, it is build on poles after all", the father said. I could not help but turn around. "It has something to do with the strait that was almost impossible to enter back then, if you didn`t know your way around, since at some points the water is sometimes only about 12 centimeters deep", I said, got off at my stop and was dancing the whole way home.

While I certainly will not stop writing about Venice here, expect a bunch of other posts in the near future, too. I hope everyone is celebrating their weekend!

(Photos in this post have all been taken by the boyfriend and been edited by me.)