When I say we went to Venice I'm kinda lying.. We stayed at a campsite in a town called Fusina from which we took a ferry to Venice every day. The campsite was pitched to us as a party place; "Venice by day, Fusina by night" they told us. And I suppose they were right if your idea of a party is sitting in a metal shack waiting for the sun to come up.. Apparently we missed party season by a few months - everything was closed, from the supermarket to the only restaurant. The full continental breakfast included? A croissant which in fact sets you back one euro. But who needs food and people to have fun? I had the time of my life eating rice cakes and tuna while watching Steve solve rubix cubes! The lack of food was a serious issue though.. I ate 8 cans of tuna one day. I have more mercury in my bloodstream than the average thermometer. The campsite wasn't a bad experience though, and it offered one thing that staying in Venice itself cannot - views of Venice at night from the outside.
To get in and out of Venice we took the one o'clock boat which became an event in itself as it was on this boat that Gavin had to confront his phobia of bees on a daily and hilarious basis. For some reason this was the boat that the Fusina bees took to get into Venice for the day. Every day a swarm of 40 or so annoyed us at the dock chasing a traumatized Gavin who begged us not to 'anger them', before joining us on the boat, hovering the whole way there. I want to know why they don't just fly there without the boat, and how come they don't have to pay for tickets! The boat was full of surprises, for example one day there was a math question scrawled on the wall, presenting the range of boat numbers as a quadratic equation.
Naturally I solved it, plotting the appropriate parabola along side the question. Just in case you were wondering, assuming the bus number is a cardinal number it must be greater than, or equal to 5.
It's easy to get lost in the labyrinth roads and canals of Venice, so we chose to take the same long and indirect path to the centre of town each day, passing the kebab store and the place where one can pee for free as we went. Yes there's pretty much just one place where you can pee for free in Venice, a quiet alleyway. Anywhere else charges €1.50. I find it ironic that the canals themselves smell so strongly of urine yet there's nowhere to pee. Kinda like Coleridge's "Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink", but with pee.
Sick of walking around the same small island for like six hours a day we took a tour to three small neighbouring islands each famous for some speciality. Murano specialised in glass blowing, a tradition passed on from father to son. Burano, (Murano's lame cousin) specialised in lace, a tradition begrudgingly passed on from father to son. Torcelli's specialty is that there's noone there. It's a creepy forested canal town with a whopping population of 15. What made it creepy, besides the misty canals, was that is used to have a decent population so there is an empty medieval church and belltower amongst other empty buildings and ruins. I couldn't help wondering, in a town of 15 people, what if you don't like someone? You would be stuck there with them I suppose. Unsurprisingly most houses has 'For Sale' signs outside...
What made Venice and the body of water it floats in so cool for me was the idea of all these tiny little microcosms existing on tiny little islands existing more or less exactly as they have for generations. Why anyone would choose to found a town on a floating piece of swampland I don't know, but to each their own I guess.
I now head to my last stop of the trip, Milan, where 4 months of craziness comes to an end.