Our Visit to Venice

During our Europe tour we spent three days in Italy, out of which two were in the most beautiful city I have ever visited - Venice. It has an old world charm to it. There is no vehicular traffic - that according to me was the best part about it. You are either on foot or travelling in a boat. Venice is the world's only pedestrian city.

The lovely city stretches across 117 small islands in the marshy Venetian Lagoon along the Adriatic Sea. It is a natural wonder and not surprisingly the city sees an average of 50,000 tourists a day. Most of them prefer to stroll around and visit all the places on foot like we did. If you are not into walking you can use the water buses (vaporetti) and water taxis to get around. If you feel more indulgent you can always hire a private gondola.

Every turn you take leads you to a lovely bridge overlooking a canal. There are so many tiny canals all over the place. And innumerable bridges. I lost count after a while. The three main ones are - Ponte Degli Scalizi, Ponte Di Rialto and the Ponte Dell'Accademia.

Venice is the best city to get lost in. We had a map with us, but we didn't use it much. Just explored the city on foot and it was marvellous. The main attractions in Venice are:
- Saint Mark's Basilica (Basilica di San Marco)
- San Giovanni e Paolo (a huge Dominican church)
- Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari (the friary church)
- The Correr Museum
- The Doge's Palace
- Jewish Ghetto of Venice
- The Mocenigo Palace
- The Glass Museum
- The Lace Museum
- The Rialto Market
- Zattere (a long and lovely walk along the Giudecca canal)