Venice! Swamp to merchant capital of the Mediteranean. 118 islands joined by foot bridges and ferry lines. A city's worth of tourists every day to become engrossed and lost in its maze of footpaths and canals and for one week in the summer of 2016, Gemma and I joined them.
We never intended to stay there for the entirety of our trip. the previous year we spent nine days in Nice (can't find the photos so no blog post), which was nice, but a little stagnating. When we arrived in Venice we had only booked our hotel for three night and we intended to stay in nearby cities for the remainder of our holiday. But Venice is a place like no other.
We stumbled across a Zaha Hadid exhibition, an influential architect whom Gemma likes. We saw to the Interpreti Veneziani play Vivaldi. We travelled out to colourful islands of Murano and Burano and traipsed around Torcello (I decided we should move to Torcello but thought it would be too boring).
Baiky snags a summer spritz.
Venice: non-stagnating
If I followed our every minute activity this post would go on forever, but it truly was fascinating. No cars, just boats and gondolers; winding lanes so narrow that barely one person can squeeze down;
A venetian highway.
everywhere you turn toursits, tourists, and more god-awful tourists (yes, I realise the irony); and then at 4:00am, poof, like magic, everyone is gone and Venice becomes a ghost town devoid of sound but for the gentle lapping of waves.
This was taken at about 5:30 in the morning. At any time past 8am hundreds of people would be crowded around the statue and traversing the street. This, buy the way, is the secret to good photos in Venice...
It was chock full of surprises. Despite the buildings appearing to be tiny, our first hotel room was massive. Everywhere you turn there was massive church or cathedral (not surprising) that had been turned into an alternate use or museum (hugely surprising).
Also surprising, the huge glass replica of puffer fish.
And it was built on top of a swamp. By chance (not really by chance, the main tourist area of Venice is not that big; we were bound to find out about it) we came across a carthedral converted into a Leonardo da Vinci 'musem'. They had hand's on scale models of da Vinci models and inventions. It was like Questacon, if it had been designed in the 1400s.
Murano and Burano were both like this, I admire the dedication at keeping the paint so bright!
We sipped Spritz in the sun. We marvelled at how pure stillness of the canals in early morning perfectly reflected its surroundings.
Reflections in the canals.
We climbed St Marks Tower and went to the Basilica where we made all the requisite ohhs and ahhhs. And yes, we got stuck in Acqua Alta. Twice. Its alright though, my shoes are waterproof.
No story to thsi photo, dad just gets annoyed if I do no have a picturen of me in a blog post.
All in all it was a good trip, and while I enjoyed myself Gemma absolutely adored the place. After being there we would love to return, but I also feel strongly for the locals and how the sheer volume of tourists is impacting the true spirit of Venice. We might return and we also might not as Europe still has a lot to offer. 
Gemma and I indulging in a selfie.
