# Tell me about Venice (Venezia)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-venice-venezia/509847>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [September 12, 2009, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-venice-venezia/509847 "2009-09-12T20:51:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-venice-venezia/509847/61 "2009-09-18T21:58:18Z")

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> [@ShadowFacts](#):
>
> Anything in particular in Ravenna one should be looking for?

Definitely the mosaics, as Erdosian notes. I wasn’t sure these would be anything great, but found them to be absolutely excellent. Among them is the [temple of Galla Placidia](http://images.google.com/images?q=galla+placidia&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=vAG0StXUDIWPlAeh8-kG&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1), built around 1600 years ago.

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**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-venice-venezia/509847/62 "2009-09-19T06:44:04Z")

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I went to Venice for five days in July and I was sorry to leave – I had a marvellous time. I just wandered around drinking it all in, going into the churches and so forth. Despite this being the same time as the Venice Biennale (which was cool in itself), I didn’t find myself particularly overcome by the hordes, either – maybe I just tuned them out.

You’ve gotten many good recommendations, especially from **Götterfunken**. I would add two. First, the vaporetto (water bus) is an attraction in itself, as far as I’m concerned – I spent plenty of time just cruising around on it, looking. You’ll be using it anyway to get around, it’s cheap (especially if you buy a pass), and it’s just about the most romantic public transit in the world. I didn’t even feel tempted to take a gondola ride – the vaporetti were really all I needed in that department.

Second, I didn’t go up the campanile in St. Mark’s Square; instead, I went across St. Mark’s Basin to San Giorgio Maggiore, the one with the similar-looking campanile facing St. Mark’s. The church is Palladio’s last work, but on a whim I took the elevator up the campanile – only a few euros – and the view was heartbreaking; the entire archipelago of Venice at your feet, and the horizon so vast the earth curves. I can’t describe it. I still remember how I felt.

The only stain on the whole experience was what a pain it was to eat. I was on a tight budget, and it seemed that nearly the only things that were reasonably priced were frozen and reheated. The only exception was the gelato - cheap and wonderful; if I could have lived on gelato, I’d have had it made.

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