Venetian Memoirs 2005

Its February.
Its Venice.
Its Carnivale time.

Hords of people decended upon the little city of Venice to experience it like at no other time in its calendar. Amongst all the throngs of people Lulu, Jody, Cecilia and I daily found ourselves lost amongst the narrow alley ways of romantic Venice.

Its not that we didn't have a map, we had several, its just that the typical free (coz we're too cheap arse) map doesn't list every street name. But that's half the fun of Venice or any other city for that matter - getting lost and finding what you find. There is truely no better way to experience a city.

There were two things I wanted to do in Venice this time around (it was the 2nd time for both Lu and I). First was to take photographs... derrrrr... of hopefully people dressed in classical Venetican Carnivale costumes. Second was to find that little sweets shop that sells that "To Die For Hot Chocolate". Just writing about it is making me drool... not helped by the fact its 2pm and I haven't eaten anything all day.

Tick. Tick. Both missions accomplished. Many places actually have hot chocolate and we tried one other. It was just as good too!

One thing that was reminiscent of Brussels was little shops selling hot fruity wine. Just the thing when the temperature is close/below freezing. But as the pictures below will tell the weather was beautiful and we had blue skies! Weather reports suggested snow, which would have been quite spectacular to say the least.

So what else did we do? Well the girls shopped. Shopped. Oh and did I mention shopped?

What else did I do? I waited. I waited. And when I was almost bored of that, I waited somemore. All the men out there feel my pain. I could have been bored if I waited any longer. Salvation was to be at hand! Being carnivale time there were plenty of people in costumes walking about. Wandering mistrels to delight the passer-bys. Jugglers performing death defying acts of courage with their balls!

But I was good. I was restrained. I had to be. I didn't take my laptop so I did not have unlimited storage on my digital camera. And I only really allowed myself 2 rolls of film on my slr. (speaking of which I should get off my arse and put them in for processing).

I love Italian food, and the local food here was great. The pizzas, the pastas, and oh the coffee! Eva when you read this you should come over just for the coffee, its just that good!

Venice truely is as romantic as they say....

Below are a few pictures from the trip. Just a small collection. We'll add a proper album of photos soon and let you know when its ready!

Venice wouldn't be Venice without the famous iconic gondola. And no photo album would be complete without atleast one picture of one.		Being Carnivale 2005, there were many costumed models like these posing everywhere. The best places to take photos like these is around the corner form San Marco Square as they stand on the jetty so you get a beautiful backdrop to all your photos.
Sun set over Venice. It could only get better if I had a glass of hot fruity/spiced red wine or hot chocolate. But then I wouldn't have the camera to take this shot!		Dreamy. romantic Venice by night (and Denzil's camera and tripod).