Venice

A problem with staying in the middle of Venice is that I arrived sweaty and exhausted and then had to haul my suitcase over what seemed like an infinite number of charming arched bridges and cobbled pathways. Once I got to the hostel and dumped my stuff I went to bed early and despite all the lights being on and the bass thumping from the next room passed out immediately.

Everywhere looked like this

I could just swing my camera about wildly

Yum!

All there really is to do in Venice is look at the beautiful architecture and the beautiful tourists and eat nice food. There are a lot of tourists, but they tend to trudge around one circuit of the city with wider paths (there are no cars, no room) so as soon as you veer off into a sidestreet you are alone. And it's impossible to find a part of venice that's not beautiful; the whole place is almost suspiciously charming.

The best pizza I've ever eaten

Venice is cool because it is also a functioning town wih locals walking around, who I found not at all jaded and sick of loud english speakers but happy and friendly. A lot of them have dogs! I tried to photograph every dog I saw but soon gave up; I still have a lot of blurry photos of dogs if you want to arrange a viewing.

Cane!

The afternoon got brutally hot so I headed back to the hostel, where I got chatting to some cool people: A baker from Portland who ad just been building a straw bale house in Croatia; a guy from Chicago who was working for google in Paris; a business student in Madrid originally from Hong Kong; a Californian who had quit her job at whole foods to go on a dance course in Austria. We hung out for the evening and the next day. 

Picturesque

A journalist from New York

scallops, spaghetti, cheap wine and good times