Venice: Where streets turn streams

So after getting bored in this small town of ITALY, this was my first chance to visit an European city and nothing could have been better than this beautiful place called VENICE.....the trip seemed frightening to me at first considering the fact that Italy is not a safe place to be alone at night....and I was supposed to change 2 trains for my journey and wait at ANCONA station for 2.30 hrs for my train in d middle of d nite...

I started off my journey at 7.30 on friday evening and after travelling by two trains,on ancona station, I decided to open the beer can that i had in my bag...while I was drinking it quite lavishly sitting in d station waiting room, two policemen came and asked me for my passport...at that moment, I felt ki "sachin aaj to tu gaya bhai, shayad station pe beer pini allowed nahin hoti hogi"..but they just took my passport and called somewhere, probably the international office, and returned it after confirming all the details there...

finally I reached VENEZIA at 7 in the morning, and rest of the people came at 9...

Finally I had someone to speak hindi with after a long time...and now considering the fact that accomodation for the night was goin to be very costly, we decided to abandon it and started the journey of venice without having brushed ,taking bath and all the things that are suppsed to be done in the morning because you have to pay 70 cents to visit the toilet at the station..

the grand canal that you see right in front of the station and two beautiful churches near told us what magnificence we were supposed to see further.....our first stop was at some museo di scienzo naturale or something similar where we saw some dinosaur skeletons made out of bones dat were brought from the SAHARA desert.

Next, we visited a few more museums while walking towards the PIAZZA SAN MARCO, the main place to be visited in venice. On our way we saw the bridge of rialto...it is said that if a couple kisses under this bridge,they remain together for life, so that was a very romantic place to be at, albeit with a bunch of guys...finally we reached our destination....PIAZZA SAN MARCO. Even in a passing sight, one is bound to appreciate the grandeur of the place...basillica of san marco on one side,sea on the other, a 150 m high clock tower in the middle and palace and museums on the other two sides...After visiting the museums where we saw some maps n globes of 14th century and the palace with all the ceilings carved with magnificent paintings and d fireplaces scuplted with lions and some christian symbols...The feel of d place was great....finally we saw the prisons inside the palace itself and also the bridge of sighs, which is named so bcause that was the bridge which was visible from the last window from where the prisoners could see  beautiful venice before spending all their life in prisons.....Inside the prisons, I also saw all graffiti made by the prisoners, some of them had made cathedrals, others made pictures of nude women and various other stuff....

Finally we decided to discover the pleasure of being in a ferry and bought the ferry passes which were valid for 24 hrs...The first ferry ride was bound to be wonderful because we stood on the deck with cool winds against our face mixed wid some drops of sea water sometimes...we just climbed any ferry and went to some arbit places only to come back to the piazza again in d evening....now all of us were hungry like anything, but considering the cost of having a decent dinner and the fact that we were just students, dinner at  a restaurant was ruled out. Finally after searching for sometime, we found a chinese restaurant where we had our dinner by paying just 4.5 euros per head.

The night was even more wonderful with some performances on the piazza for inauguration of a new tower there. The night became even better when we found out that there was free wine available for all....

Finally came the question of where to sleep....we went to the railway station hoping to sleep in the waiting room only to find the station closed till early morning..so I ended up sleeping on the cold floor outside the station( one experience that I'll remember all my life)....Next morning all of us spent 70 cents and went to the washroom to freshen up.

This day, we visited some island museums which were quite boring....so we went back to the piazza to go to the top of clock tower from where we had a bird's eyeview of the whole city and applauded its magnificence.....Finally we went to the BASILLICA OF SAN MARCO, which was our last target...and was the most beautiful one also...with gold plated roof and a grand church beneath it...

Thus ended our wonderful trip to VENICE.