Venezia

Oct. 11, 2008

I left Prague just as I was starting to fall in love with the city. The Internet cafe/sex shops, the world weary men and women sucking on their cigarettes, the swans preening beside the river, everything in that dark, Gothic city started working its charm. But Italy was calling. I needed to get south, follow the sun.

I took an overnight train from the Czech Republic and woke up in Venice on Oct. 7. I spent the day walking down the twisting alleyways and over countless bridges straddling the canals. The only map I had was in an art book that had only monuments and places of interest marked with no street names. I doubt street names would've helped. Venice is an intricate series of narrow walking streets along the waterways. Most of the morning I just followed signs that said Per Rialto, Per San Marco trying to find Saint Mark's Square.

Every second shop sells Carnival masks or Pinnochio wooden puppets. Laundry hangs from clothes lines over the milky, blue canals. What struck me most about Venice were the sounds of the city. Because there are no cars, trucks or buses, you hear more clearly the sounds of everyday life, of silverware clinking in restaurant kitchens, of Italian voices, of children laughing.

It's a beautiful place, and I'd like to go back again someday, with a companion and more money.