Thursday

I am officially in Love with Italy.

It would be wonderful if all best friends could come every so often to experience the delight this country has to offer, each town and city has something new and spectacular. Who will come and spend hours taking in sculptures, paintings and architecture with me?

Yesterday I made a new friend and we spent the enire evening together (crash course on getting to know someone) I fully enjoyed her company and stories of her recent lone voyage to Romainia... inspiring! I can travel alone and fully enjoy it! I much prefer some company to share it with tho. :) She decided we should take a train to Venice for the evening. What a wonderful idea!

It was dark upon our arrival but the city and shops where more alive at 6 pm then they had been during the day when I had last visited. We started our walk tho the city with a lively woman giving us sample shots of different kinds of grappa, if you have had grappa you realize this isn't nessecarily a good thing, but we found a chocolate grappa that was delicious and worthy of Brittany's euros. After quite a while I finally decided upon a resturaunt that was worthy of our dinning experience, very quaint with candle light and all! The method of dinning and ordering food here is strange to get used to, but it was still enjoyable.

With bellies full of pasta we made our way through the maze of streets to San Marco's square (which we completely missed upon last visit). After turning this way and that way with the streets getting narrowerand the buildings closing in, I can not explain the feeling of emerging through the arches into the square. It was like a weight was lifted from my chest and I could actually breath as I walked further into the massive openess that is Piazza San Marco. It is magical at night, with the light just peering from the archways of the building walls that lined the square and led toward large gorgeous buildings at the other end. The detail that is put into the architecture here is just unbelievable, even the buildings which have no significance. I was spell bound by a tower to the left, of what I later found out was St. Mark's Basilica. I always forget to research where I am going more... well I didn't at all for Venice until this morning and was shocked to find out what I had viewed the night before; I am now thrilled to go back, once again, during the day so I can go into the building and see their full spendor. Because of the dark I could not see how beautiful everything was untill I was up close and the surprise of the gorgeous paintings on the outside of the Basilica made it all the better.
As if this wasn't enough, we walked to the right of the Basilical, along Doges Palace and it opened up to the Tronchetto - Lido di Venezia, if there were a picture deffinition for romantic this view at night is it.
better pictures (found on google)

My picture