Venice

Venice is more or less what you expect -- a little labrythine patch of snow-globe caliber Enchantment neatly crisscrossed by bridges, canals and laundry lines. There are persistent flower vendors, ornate fountians and vines overflowing the banks of the canals. There are all sorts of small boats tied up to docks next to the sidewalk. The streets twist together in a way that seems to deliberately encourage losing yourself in the city -- nothing goes directly anywhere.
The city is sinking, of course, and the canals are rumored to be so polluted that if you fall in they have to take you straight to the hospital. Add to this the facts that hardly anyone can afford to live in Venice any more and the local economy is entierly dependent on tourism and it becomes clear that Venice is a dying city kept on life support -- now a novelty resort.
But while it might not be more than a bauble now, just a shell of what it once was, it´s certinally a charming bauble.
The biggest thing I can fault it for is having payphones with never give change, but that seems to be pretty consistent all over Italy.
After contacting our hostel and making sure a bus WOULD be coming to pick us up later in the afternoon we hit up the pizza scene for lunch. The pizza in Spain has been uniformly bland -- possibly 80% of the worst pizza I´ve ever eatten has come from there, so I was excited for Italian pizza. It wasn´t bad. They put a lot more oil on their pizza, offer more toppings than just ham and cheese and the overall effect was pleasing.
However, the last pizza I had before coming to Spain was my first taste of deep dish pizza -- straight from Chicago -- and I´m not sure if any pizza in the world, even those from the "homeland" can compare.

Oops, cafe is closing again! I guess the bus story will have to wait until next time.