Italian Adventure Part Two

   Venice. The city that defies description. Home to Marco Polo, Vivaldi and Bellini. Immortalized in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice and Othello. The floating city. The Bridge of Sighs. Glassblowers and lace makers extraordinaire. Ancient gondolas glide alongside modern vaporetti. The masks and costumes of the Carnival vie for tourist Euros with the vaunted purveyors of high fashion. The worlds collide, overlap, and flow together. They move in tandem with the water. Life in Venice is eternally bounded and defined by the blue green seas that ceaselessly lap against the buildings.
   Make no mistake, this is a city of extremes. It polarizes visitors. One is either entirely captivated by the romance and the sense of timelessness or one feels disoriented, confused, and eager to escape its labyrinthine passageways. I fall into the former category. History. Art. Architecture. The provocative and creative marriage of Byzantine, Rococo and Moorish forms. Maze-like streets that seem to turn inward upon themselves. Water, water, everywhere. And overriding all a pervading sense of mystery. This is a city of endless secrets. For me, a romantic at heart, what is there not to love?