Venezia

I wasn't expecting to love Venice as much as I did. Its charm cast a spell over me, what can I say? I've heard a lot of bad things about Venice- people saying it's too overrun by tourists, that it's dirty and poorly maintained. In my trip, these issues did not overwhelm the beauty of the city. Yeah, there were tourists, and I guess it was dirty, but the city was just too beautiful for those things to matter. Maybe it's because I'm used to the dirtiness of Florence (you can see the pollution on the duomo), or maybe I just lucked out with my timing by going at the end of October.

I think what I liked about Venice was its ability to manage modernity without abandoning its past. It helped that the biggest activity I did was attend La Biennale, a great contemporary art show. I think what else is also the key to Venice is its inability to ever really modernize. It's a city of canals. Yeah, you can put motorboats on those canals, but motorboats are nowhere near the annoynce level of traffic and noise with cars and scooters.

But then again, I was in Venice for about thirty hours. The three times I had visited Florence before being here for a semester, I didn't see a single flaw. Now I do. I'm sure it's the same way with Venice. With any city, really. But, in the end, its the flaws that give our cities character, and it's the flaws that give us something to work towards.