Photo trip to Venice

When we decided to visit Venice during the Carneval (Italians call it Carnevale di Venezia) there was six of us. However one of our companions had to cancel at the last minute.

We all agreed to make a photo trip out of it, so we scheduled an early start on Saturday morning. After some delay (one of the participants overslept), we were on the highway heading for Venice. It was a three hour ride from Ljubljana, Slovenia to Venice, Italy. You can check a suggested itinerary here (provided by ViaMichelin).



When we parked our cars on the island of Tronchetto it was already past 11 AM (we were well behind our schedule). From there we caught a Vaporetto (a water bus) to St. Mark's Square (Piazza San Marco). This is the famous square just across the island of Murano.



There were quite a few locals in costumes showing off. Many tourists and also many professional photographers (judging by their equipment) gladly took the chance. We also joined in and got trigger happy.

We spent quite some time on the square, before venturing into the maze of narrow streets and stinky canals.



We continued wandering the streets until a way too early sunset. After sunset we soon headed back to our parking area. We went on foot and took a chance to see a bit less glamorous side of the city. Piles of garbage by the road were just one of the highlights of our walk.

I personally think Venice is overrated as a tourist location. It is expensive and overrun by tourists all year round. Nonetheless I wouldn't dare to argue about its picturesqueness. It is almost impossible to take a bad photo while there.

I hope you enjoy my selection.



This trip was an excellent idea. And it was relatively cheap too. For two persons it costed under 80 EUR in total. If all five of us went by one car, it would be even cheaper.
If I break it down to separate items it looks like this:

road tools ......... 10 EUR
parking ............ 20 EUR
gasoline ........... 25 EUR
vaporetto ......... 12 EUR
pizza & drinks .... 10 EUR
----------------------------
2 persons total ... 77 EUR

I guess it is necessary to point out that we successfully resisted the temptation to buy any souvenirs or enjoy a coffee on the main square.
This stuff can get really expensive. For instance if you sit at a table closer to a canal, they usually charge you more for whatever you order!

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Venice Carnival 2008

Carnival of Venice or Carnevale di Venezia - as Italians call it, is the place to be these days. This year I went there too!

A couple of days ago me and M. were going through our options on how to spend this last Saturday. One of our options was skiing. We were invited to join a group of friends on a skiing day-trip to Austria.

We almost agreed to go for it, when another option came up.

Four of our other friends were planning a photo trip to Venice. We were interested the moment we heard about it. After a short discussion we opted for this one.

We have both been to Venice before, so we kind of knew what to expect. However we (me especially) were a bit worried this time of year the city might be overrun with tourists from allover the world.



Some years ago, when we were there during the Carnival the streets were literally flooded with people. The human river just swallowed us and it was almost impossible to take a turn. If the crowd was going left, so were we.
You can imagine the nightmare when we tried to take photos. Taking a photo without at least some people in it was science fiction. That really is not my kind of thing.
Unfortunately that wasn't the end of it. It was a very cold day and the strong wind wasn't so nice either. As hours passed, the wind grew stronger and we were freezing.
It was definitely not something to hope for this year.

Luckily this year was nothing like that. All main events were scheduled for the next weekend, so I guess the majority of American and Japanese tourists are still waiting to catch a plain for Venice.
Even the weather was nice and sunny this year. The temperatures were somewhere around 11 degrees Celsius. Altogether it was a nice day in Venice. We were glad we went there again.



This will have to do for now. I will post again on this subject when I make it through a pile of photo material. And it's quite a pile!
Stay tuned for some more old canals and sparkling costumes.

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Trevalli Ski-opening official stats

For a couple of years now the official Dolomiti Superski homepage is offering some statistics for you to check out after you get back home.

I always try to remember and check them out. This year they upgraded the statistics with a graphical representation.



This is how a summary of my four days of skiing in Trevalli looks like. I noticed the numbers are a bit lower than usually. The reason for that is quite obvious from my previous two posts.
I posted a similar summary after my last year's skiing adventure in Civetta. You can check it out here.

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