Hi Everyone!

Venice is just like it's been depicted to me in Movie and on TV - for the most part. Only canals and narrow walkways. A handful of more open piazzas. Could actually feel a bit claustrophobic for some as it was also a weaving maze of jagged intersections and sneaky paths. Restaurants and boutiques everywhere - it was beautiful and delicious.

I needed to investigate and take the water bus to get to the southern island where my hostel was, but that ended up being a great investment as it made getting around easy and was also a cool and cheap way to see a large majority of the city.

Random thought/observation that I never investigated an answer to but obviously there must be a good one.... where does the clean water come from?.... where does the dirty water go? A wonderful mystery I quickly put out of my head to keep my sanity.

My hostel, The Generator, was great - huge open spaces to mingle or work on my video editing, fun atmosphere, and decent facilities.

Venice did feel like a place for couples only. As a single traveller, I couldn't help but notice some of the overcrowding issues that were taking away from the fantasy or iconic adventure of Venice. For example, a gondola ride down the canals sounds romantic and it is - but a gondola traffic jam where you are stuck with 50+ other gondolas and half of them aren't drinking in the beauty and enjoying the moment but are instead taking selfies and being obnoxious... it made things less wonderful... at least to me as an outside observer.

The city recently implemented a daily tourist tax of 5 euros but that has many exceptions. I was staying in either a hotel or hostel in the city and so I did not have to pay - I learned it is really targeted at cruise ship travellers who are only coming into the city to visit and then leave on the same day. The idea of the tax is to use it to increase public services (water closets, park spaces on the edges of town, etc.) to help support the growing number of people in such a packed small town.

Overall, I had a great time and I was impressed with how it all just seems to work despite being a real unique way to develop a city.

Hope you all enjoy the video!

Eric