Venice is The Place

The very best thing about Venice is walking around Venice. You buy a vaporetto ticket for as many days as you will be in the city and then you ride the numero Uno for one or two stops, get off and wander around. Sooner or later you find yourself back at the Grand Canal ----catch another vaporetto and do it all again. Restaurants, museums, historical sites, they are all fine, but it's the alleys, the passageways, the little shops, the well-dressed old ladies in jackets and canes, the dogs riding on gondolas with their noses into the wind, all the workers on their boats, bringing in everything Venice needs, like food, and hauling out everything that must be cleaned or discarded, like laundry, that make it so uniquely charming. And expensive. But at least you see why.

We must remember every man in Italy smokes, and they are not allowed to do it inside, so if you sit at an outdoor cafe expect to taste cigarettes with your ziti a la arrabiata.

If the tide is up, like it was this morning, you'll see water slipping under people's front doors. Venice is sinking and the ocean level is rising, so already no one occupies the first doors of all these old, old palaces on the Canal. The owners live on the second floor and the servants, once occupied the top floor, where the kitchen was, so if there were a fire they'd only lose the top floor and the servants. Now even the wealthiest Venetians rent out the top floor.

Mosquitos. Everywhere, in all seasons. They aren't the super-itchy kind but they are noisy as piss and will fly in and out of your ear all night long, making sleep impossible and bloodying your pillow in the morning.

I can already feel it -- I could never live in Venice, but I am going to miss it a lot.