I think today is going to be the last
day I write about Italy. There are so many more things I could read about, but
I want to get to research another country or two this month. If I try to cover
everything about Italy I want to, I will be writing about Italy for the rest of
the year! Frankly, it’s a little overwhelming to try to fit research about an
entire country into morning coffee time, even when attempting to break that
research into bite size pieces. Nevertheless, I will soldier on with this
experiment. After all, at least some parts of an experiment are bound to fail.
Perhaps this month will be more difficult or less organized than some of the
others, but at least I will learn from it!
Since part of my goal was to learn more
about countries that I’m interested in visiting someday, I looked today at the
travel destination in Italy I’m most interested in, Venice, and I found this
fun article on what NOT to do in Venice: http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/11/18/112434/62/travel/What+Not+To+Do+In+Venice%3A+The+Top+5+Tourist+Mistakes.
The most interesting recommendation? NOT
to take a gondola ride. This was a bit disappointing to me, since this is something
I’ve always wanted to do in Venice. Apparently, however, these days the
gondolas are just overpriced and overpacked with tourists. The article does
recommend taking a traghetto for
under a Euro instead. It’s a gondola shell, which the locals use for quick,
cheap transportation across the Grand Canal. However, you better have good
balance since you’ll be standing in the little boat. (Hmmm… I’m off to work on
those yoga poses).
Traghetto
I do like to make an effort to
experience at least some things that the locals do when I visit a new place. I
think it’s a little ridiculous to be completely anti-tourist, since you are, in
fact, a tourist. There are usually tourist attractions that are worth seeing.
The trick is figuring out which ones are worth it and avoiding the rest! Does
anyone have experience with gondola rides? Do you agree/disagree that they are
not worth it? What other tourist traps have you fallen prey to? I’d love to
hear some good stories from those of you who like to travel!
Xoxo,
Diana
No comments:
Post a Comment