Specifically, Florence is where the brains are (or were). In particular, residents include Galileo Galilei, Niccolo Machiavelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Dante, Donatello and Raphael. Basically, without Florence, we would have no Ninja Turtles; where would we be then?
Venice was a bit of an anti-climax. The center of Venice (and I imagine most of the city) is pedestrianized - so there are no cars anywhere. Obviously, that means there are a lot of boats. But I wasn't in Venice fort the transportation - I had two things that I really wanted to do in Venice: first was to upgrade from my current luggage - a duffle bag - to something more suitcasey. The second thing to do was to find an internet cafe and post some photos.
On both accounts, I failed. At a glance, Venice appears to have little besides fantastically expensive restaurants, fantastically expensive hotels, fanatistically expensive glass stores and fantasically expensive handbag stores. Well, that's perhaps not entirely accurate; there are cheaper versions of all those products (except the hotels), but you're not getting the "real" thing from the cheap guys, and depending on who you buy from, you can get ticketted and thrown in jail. Something to be avoided to be certain.
Venice in general is very noisy and crowded.
One interesting thing that I saw in Venice that I hadn't seen before was people dressed up as statues. Some street performers were dressed realistically enough that, when they were standing still (in a suitably statue-esque pose), most people strolled past without a glance, and then did a double-take when the statue started blowing kisses at them.
At the end of the day, I left Venice utterly exhausted and somewhat cranky. The busride to Florence (via Pisa) was nice, because it gave a chance to relax.
Pisa is one big gypsy-fest, and a condemned building. Worth a stop, to say you've been there, but I wouldn't even recommend staying overnight at a hotel.
Maybe I'm sounding a little down on Italy. Overall, I'm sure it's great and lots of culture and history and all that, but I'm just not all that into it, I'm finding. Maybe the pace of the trip and the heat is starting to wear me down a little. Oh well.
Earlier today, we made it to Florence. Florence seems nicer, and apparently, the shopping here is great, which should make the above referenced suitcase hunt easier. Obviously, the internet is easier to access here, and it looks like I'll be able to upload some pictures (finally!), from the cafe I'm at now, tomorrow.
Although, as anyone who reads this knows already, only time will tell. Any pictures I post tomorrow could well be the last during the actual trip, with a final post made from Yellowknife showing everything since.
And it aggravates me when people give italian salutations when they have visited Italy, so I'll just say so long.
...
Arrividerci. I couldn't help myself.
