Venice sounds like my perfect city on paper. No cars, easily walkable, full of stuff to do. So when I refer to it as "Old People Disneyland", please know I mean that lovingly.

The high speed train was pretty nice! Although honestly for the size of Italy, I don't think they're worth it unless you're going longer distances. The high speed is 2 hours for 100 euros, and the slow is 3 hours for 45 euros. To me, 55 euros is worth the hour, but you do you. As a point of comparison, China's high speed trains would cost the equivalent of ~15 euros for that distance and do it faster, so, while functional enough, Italy's train system didn't exactly blow me away.

Still, the train stops right in the middle of Venice, so we took a 10 minute walk to our hostel. My first impressions of Venice are exactly what you'd expect - an incredibly beautiful city, with lots of tourists, and yet it actually wasn't as crowded as I expected. Except for some choke points, it was rare to be standing next to someone. And despite boats wizzing around, we never once felt the need to take one. Looking at Google Maps, it was faster just to walk 95% of the time, considering how compact Venice is, and you have to wait for the water bus to arrive, AND they stop at each pier along the way. To top it off it's also 10 euros a ticket, so I kind of don't understand the point, at least as long as I'm young enough to walk. They really need to get the Bangkok canal boats in here, which zip to downtown and back for 10 baht (30 cents).

Anyway, enough about infrastructure, what about Venice? Well, pretty much every corner has a photo op that could be a profile picture, so we overfloweth with photos. We also went to a lot of churches, because A) Ella likes them, B) The art in them is better than what we saw in the museums, and C) They're free or super cheap. And oh boy, Venetians love their churches. We even went to a church that was converted into a supermarket, making those olives and cheeses the most blessed of all. But as far as churches go, we were both a little disappointed with the big tourist attraction, St. Marco's. The outside is great, but the inside was a little meh. Except for the ceilings - man, Italians are super good at ceilings. For us, Basilica dei Frari was by far the favorite, as we found it much more impressive and basically empty. There were a million other churches we stopped at on the way, so I'll put a bunch of photos at the end.

Also it turns out the church I really wanted to see, from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, isn't a church at all, or at least anymore. San Barnaba Church now is a museum about Leonardo Da Vinci, who wasn't even Venetian. Sadly, there were no grail knight crypt underneath, although I did find the "sewer" that Indy climbed out of. It's since been replaced with a square utility panel, ruining my dreams of popping up in the middle of a café before a dramatic boat chase.

As much as I like recreating Indiana Jones, I think the coolest attraction in Venice is the Acqua Alta Bookstore, oddly enough. Apparently it floods a lot, so they store all their books in bathtubs or on elevated shelves. They also turn old books into stairs and walls, and have a free gondola for your obligatory Venice photo. Also, did I mention it was full of cats? Essentially if it was attached to a KFC, there would be nothing else in this world that could compete for Ella's attention. Still, I liked it as well, because it's such an off the wall place that you'd be hard pressed to find elsewhere. And to me, that's what travel is all about.

But as great as Venice is, I have very little to say about it. I think pictures would be a better job than me saying "It's really pretty" a hundred different ways, so, I'd recommend you just look at the photos (seriously, some of the best pictures I've ever taken). If I had to say something bad though, it's that the food is a bit meh. I found it less good and more expensive than Rome (except pizza was cheaper, for some reason?) Eventually after a few restaurants we just gave up and mostly ate from the grocery store - when you can get the same salad for 2 euros that'd cost 10 in a restaurant, kind of makes you consider if it's worth it.

But despite that, Venice is still one of the coolest places I've visited. I really like it here, even if it's just impossible to not take an amazing photo. I think it's been perfectly tailored to be an Old People Disneyland, but it's just so beautiful, I can't help but love it. But unfortunately it's our last stop on our Italy tour. It has been pretty memorable, and looking back at my photo gallery, it's a little surreal to remember all the amazing things we saw. I'm sure we'll be back here some day, because I feel we just did the tourist track without really "seeing" the country. That's not a bad thing, now we checked that off the list, know how things work, and we'll hit the ground running next time. Hopefully that next time starts in Rome, because I really like Rome a lot. Then maybe south towards Sicily? But for now, we're off to Paris to switch from pizza to crepes.

Even the grocery stores are beautiful