Gondolas, Colours and a whole lot of Water!

Yes this time we found ourselves in Italy... but a different kind of Italy than the one we know. Unlike before, we were outside the airport this time!
We spent the first night in Treviso, in a beautiful family run guest house and from there we got the train to Venice the net day.
Venice, Venezia, Bella Venezia! The train station lies directly on the Canal Grande and so you can already get a very good idea of how a stay in this city will offer. Wherever you look you’ll find people, boats and water. Then we walked and walked to find the hostel room we rented (Locanda Casa del Melograno)... one advice: in Venice don’t trust Google Maps! In Venice addresses are marked in numbers and districts (eg. Cannareggio 4021)... Google Maps follows streets and numbers (so it takes the district name as a street name)... and yes we ended in a very different place than where we wanted to go. Thank God, we found a very helpful postman (who we met twice) and there was definitely nobody better than him to ask for directions. After at least an hour of taking bumps in the bag, we heard someone saying ‘overbooking’ and had to walk more again. In the end at least we heard that we got a discount of €50 on the whole bill... but we also heard that the room was quite small in half an apartment.
Not much this time... and we were put in another bag and headed straight to the centre of town. There were plenty of people selling masks, many others wearing them, others with huge and elaborate costumes (some of them looked really expensive) posing in front of cameras. Some of them even took photos with us... others didn’t let us take a photo with them.
In the mean time, we also played tourists a little... and visited Piazza San Marco, Palazzo Ducale, Basilica of San Marco, Basilica della Salute, the Bell Tower in Piazza San Marco with wonderful views, and of course, the Ponte Rialto too. Getting lost in the streets of Venice is also something you should do as you end up seeing places which are not so mainstream, yet nice just the same. Well, once we got lost and somehow got to the Arsenale which is quite a highlight in Venice... but otherwise, we did get lost sometimes and was really nice too... some streets are just wide enough for one person to walk through and sometimes you come across wonderful canals with no annoying tourists around.
A ride in the Gondola wasn’t quite an option for us... as this was too much for our liking... but instead we opted to take the waterbus number 1 which sails through the Canal Grande and practically takes the same route most Gondolas take... an option which is waaaay cheaper.
We didn’t miss the famous aqua alta (high water) neither.  On our second morning we couldn’t reach Piazza San Marco other than by water bus. People without boots were trying all sorts of things to walk through, climbing barricades, wearing plastic bags, buying useless waterproof make-shift boots... we took the bus and visited places around the water... including the Basilica of San Marco which is never spared of the water.
The water receded before midday in a matter of minutes... and in the evening while enjoying the costume parade... it started coming up again... yep it just seems to come  up from the same ducts from where rainwater drains into the canals...
Carnival in Venice... is something we recommend for anyone to live at least once in a lifetime. Going out in the streets, doing nothing and just absorb the atmosphere is practically enough. The weekend gets busy, very busy... so try to go there a couple of days before Carnival Friday... the atmosphere starts kicking in, and you can manage  playing tourist without having to suffer long queues. And if you’re into photography... this is the place to be... a combination of colours, posers and history, all at once.