Venice

My award trip is now finished. I visited 4 countries of the former Yugoslavia (Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Serbia and Slovenia). I am now on a 3 day vacation for myself in Venice, Italy. I just arrived today. It is a really cool place. There are no cars. Everyone walks or takes boats. There are hundreds of bridges and canals. I have only been here a few hours. This weekend is the Festival of the Redeemer to celebrate the ending of the plague. They have fireworks tonight and a parade of boats tomorrow.

I like it here, but it is so different than everywhere else I have been on this trip. It is packed with English speaking tourists. It is crowded and people shove each other around to get the better pictures. I had to take a walk down some side alleys earlier to get a break from all the people. That is one of the cool things about travelling somewhere that is not popular with a lot of tourists, you can try to blend in with the people. Everyone here has a camera around their neck and is constantly looking at a map. It makes me want to go back wandering the streets of Dubrovnik or sitting in a secret part of Kalemegdan in Belgrade, or even going back to the Vintgar Gorge. I am glad that I am coming here so that I can say that I've been to Venice, but it just isn't the same.