Venice – The Floating City

Honestly, when in Venice, I could not feel the beauty of this city and even got bored. This is probably because I was too tired after more than two weeks of traveling around.

Now, when I sit down on my desk to select pictures for my blog about Venice, I can feel its poetic beauty. It took me almost half an hour just to choose a cover picture from a great number of options.

This is a city with a very unique beauty of the combination of sea and canals, mixed with classic and colorful buildings.

This is the first city where I saw the sea and boats in front of the train station.

I did not see any cars, motorbikes or bicycles in Venice. Here, only two options for transportation: walking or "water taxi".

A typical scene when people talk about Venice: the canals. In this place, houses are surrounded by canals, the "sea" is right in front of the doorstep and the boat stand in front of the door instead of cars. Very unique!

Similar to Rome, houses here are often painted in light colors (pink, orange, yellow) combined with the oldness which reveal wall cracks and bricks. But unlike Rome, the afternoon sunlight partially shines on the houses through the canals, creating a very poetic beauty.

Surrounded by canals, Venice does not have large roads but instead small winding alleys. Many "roads" go through the buildings. Although having Google Map on my hand, I still get lost often when looking for the hotel or a restaurant.

It's the same alleys/streets that I could catch dreamy frames. Those were small streets surrounded by old and colorful houses with flowers on the balcony. This is a dreamy place for Instagram girls, I thought.

The unique feature of the architecture here: old and light colors.

Looking at the localization of Burger King, I think they intentionally reveal the oldness of the buildings through cracks, bricks or old paint.

There are many buildings with tall towers similar to lighthouses in Venice.

The bridges in Venice are also unique due to their curved shape.

A typical example is the Rialto Bridge. The bridge was built with a very special arched architecture. This was also the first time I saw a market built on... a bridge.

Thanks to the special shape of the bridge, I could enjoy the fantastic view of the canal and commercial activities along the canal.

This scene makes me feel very familiar because it reminds me about my hometown in western region of Vietnam where people live with the rivers.

Along the canal are pretty restaurants.

I tried a "rolled pizza". Aggressive seagulls suddenly stole my food two times. They are always hovering overhead waiting for someone to reveal their food, then flying down fast to steal it.

Of course, Gelato must be tried.

It seems that Venice is very famous for glassmaking. I saw a lot of shops selling souvenirs made from glass, which I could not see in other cities.

It was really delightful to watch the sunset in Venice. It was very soothing and charming. Only the sound of flying seagulls in combination with the sound of a few ships in the canals.

Gondola, an icon associated with Venice. Like cyclos in Saigon.

Contrary to what I had come across before in Venice, Piazza San Marco was very crowded and noisy to me.

The genius Leonardo da Vinci used to live in Venice. He was in charge of the military architect and engineer against the city's naval attacks. So they built a museum dedicated to him in Venice.

I visited this museum.

None of his original paintings are displayed here. However, the museum shows a great number of diary papers written by Leonardo da Vinci, which depicts his ideas for paintings, inventions, surgery or weapons.

Another interesting thing is that they have rebuild " bizarre" inventions of Leonardo da Vinci, from bridges, roads, construction equipment to weapons similar to modern tanks or airplanes. Everyone could experience these inventions (except the weapons).