May 9, 1999 - Venice, Italy
We weren't that excited about
returning to Venice--both of us had already been there: Kelly in 1989 and David in
1994. But since Dave was with his friend Todd and Kelly was with her friend Negin,
we thought it might be a bit more romantic this time around.
This was another one of those "transition
places" enroute to Greece, so we had just a day to see what had changed. Once we
arrived and found a hotel, we had about a half a day left to explore. We had both
forgotten how beautiful Venice is and soon we were wandering around the small alleys by
the water. After a bit of a search, we ended up where most people end up in Venice,
Piazza San Marco (San Marco Square). This is the famous, huge plaza surrounded by
magnificent buildings, restaurants, and cafes to sit and squander away the hours.
Probably the most extraordinary thing we
discovered was contained in a small plastic bag. To explain, we noticed there were
hundreds of pigeons in the plaza and a couple of older women selling birdseed. We
thought, heck we're homeless drifters, why not spend some of our time feeding the
pigeons? But once we opened the bag, we were instantaneously surrounded by dozens of
them. It was something out of a Hitchcock film. The birds would do anything to get
some of "the stuff" in our bag. We realized if we stood still and put the
feed in our hands, the pigeons would land on our hands and eat right out of them. It
probably wasn't the most sanitary thing in the world to do but aside from a few minor
scratches it was a lot of fun.
After we washed up we started the hunt for an
inexpensive place to eat. In Venice, this was an oxymoron. With zillions of tourists
plus hundreds of catering-to-those-tourists restaurants, we stumbled upon a small place
where the menu wasn't in English and the prices didn't make us faint. We only heard
Italian and a crowd of "regulars" had control of the bar, chatting and
drinking. It was wonderful and the food was excellent.
We decided to pass on the Gondola ride (the
cost would have surpassed two nights lodging). But we did wander around until long after
the sun set. And that was it. We had to get up early to fly to Athens.
