Here is Jeff hanging out in Piazza San Marco in Venice with a
bottle of tea that Assunta gave us for the train ride. She makes
this tea from herbs that she grows herself in her garden. It's
really good tea. The table Jeff is sitting on is used as a
catwalk when the water level rises and floods Venice. It happens
every so often, and it's getting worse as the years go by, since
the bay in Venice tends to collect silt.
This is the view of Piazza San Marco from the Campanile (the bell
tower in the piazza). If you notice, all the dots on the ground
are the thousands of pigeons that hang out in the Piazza and are
fed bags of pigeon food by tourists (2000 lire a bag, about a
buck). They will fly up and sit (and shit) on your arms,
shoulders and head when you feed them.
This is one of my favorite pictures, taken by Naomi. The gondolas
come and dock right off the Piazza for the tourists to rent them.
They are pretty expensive, and usually only Japanese tourists
ride in them. In the middle of the picture is the famous column
with the symbol of Venice, the lion, on top.
Venice has one of the ugliest churches in Italy. It's hard to
believe they ever thought this was cool. And check out Monica
Lewinsky in the foreground!
The day was very hazy, as shown here. I don't know if it was
pollution or fog. Editors Note: Sometime in December '99 we
received an email from a reader who cleaned up the image. You can
see his retouched photo on the right. Thanks!
Naomi: Venice is not recommended as a place to visit, I don't think a single native lives on the island and everything is about buying little silly trinckets. Anduins and Udine were way cooler. The haze and stinky canal water didn't help.