Venice

The City of Love.

After our last UG exams on the 4th of June 2011, the four of us (me, Jon, Sara & Elwin) went to Venice for 3 nights. The mainland is about 25 minutes bus ride (€1.20 per way) to P.le Roma. From P.le Roma, one can walk or take the water taxi to St. Marco's Square. Water taxi is about 15 - 20 minutes, and walking is 30 mins or more, depending on one's walking speed.

On the second day, we walked to St. Marco's Square from P.le Termini. Actually, water taxi's are not required while on the island cause the whole island is linked via small bridges and canals.

One thing about the Italians though... they place great trust on its people and citizens. Most of the times you see people going on the bus and water taxi not paying for the ride. Jon & I paid for the bus ride. Sara & Elwin paid for the water taxi. On the 2nd and 3rd day, Sara & Elwin borrowed us their water taxi tickets so it was really a cost saving trip.

In total, I spent €250 for a 4 days and 3 nights trip including accommodation (€39 for 3 nights) and w/o air ticket. We took the RyanAir flight. It was £45 for a return trip.

I shall now show you a number of pictures while going on with descriptions. Photos are taken with a Nikon D90 and Tamron 28-75mm f2.8. 

One of many views from one of the many canals.

The first real gondola I have ever seen in my life, not the ones in Genting.

Sunny Venetian street. The weather was very sunny and hot. It was about 27 degrees Celcius

Doggie sun tanning

One of the churches

Colours

View from the grand canal

One of the shops we had our quick lunch

St Mark's Basillica

At St Mark's Square, one can feed pigeons too!

St Mark's Basillica's entrance.

Doge's Palace

Rooftop view from one of the big windows in Doge's Palace

A 24 hour clock and the zodiacs are an indicator for months

Gondolas

I spy... from my little eye...

We took the gondola, and it was a 30 minute ride for €80 for the 4 of us

Every cloud has a silver lining.

View from the gondola - San Giorgio Maggiore

Saint Mark's Basin

Panoramic view of San Giorgio Maggiore

View from the gondola. Amazing, isn't it?

Dinner on our second night was at A Beccafico Restaurant. It was the top 3 restaurants on TripAdvisor. We had a lot of food and was so full after.

At the restaurant

Complimentary starters was tomato bruschetta

Grilled scallops

Fried calamari

Mussel soup. This is amazing! The taste was just right, not too strong, not too diluted. The layer of bread on top of the soup was more or less like roti planta.

My seafood pasta

Jon's squid ink pasta

Elwin's beef pasta

Sara's beef steak with mushroom sauce

Throughout dinner, we were served with a range of complementaries - cocktail, two types of wine, free flow of flute (similar to baguette, but softer). We had tiramisu and chocolate mousse, latte and cappuccino for desserts. The old couple beside our table were so shocked with the amount of food we consumed... well. They should come to UK and they'll be even more surprised. What we had was just minuscule. Dinner was €250+. It was €52 for me.

Venice is a place famous for wedding photos too. We saw 3 couples having their photoshoot at Venice in a day. Here are 2/3 of the couples.

Couple 1

Another couple...

Couple 2

Randoms

Venice Casino

From what I observed, Venice is mainly dependent solely on tourism (stating the obvious). When it rains, you can actually see the water level rising. It rained heavily on our third day in the afternoon, and the whole day on our 4th day. Venice is popular for seafood as well and there are no cabs in the island.