Detour to Hungary

I met a girl from Halifax in Venice last Saturday who was staying in the same hostel, which hasn't technically opened, and due to a series of odd coincidences and mishaps we ended up spending the Saturday together. Someone gave us a bottle of wine that night and we had a very entertaining walk home across Venice convinced that we'd most likely fall into a canal and die - but since it was the ideal way to go, we ventured out and eventually did make it through the winding streets to our hostel where for the first time ever we managed to get the old door open (we were staying in a little apartment above a pharmacy).

Venice - the city of winding narrow cobblestone streets and criss crossing canals is the most beautiful city in the world. The narrow streets are either full of tourists, or completely empty with only rare sightings of locals. Never knowing what your going to come across around the next corner - a canal, dead end, small courtyard, running water pump, streets filled with hanging laundry or bustling market - it was the perfect city to just wander and get lost in. In the outer districts, the melancholic streets are even narrower, often reaching dead ends at a canal. With no grassy area the only plant life is the abundance of flowers and ivy spilling over the walls or the wrought iron balconies and window boxes. There's definitely no lack of colour and life. The buildings, packed together, are all deep colours and the ground floors filled with small gelaterias, snack bars and cafe's. The islands nearby that I visited - Burano and Mozzorpo are reminisce of small retirement/fishing villages. Every building is brightly painted - pinks, purples, red, green, blues, orange, or yellow. The little old couples sit outside their front doors, and people stroll along the shoreline.

After Venice we decided that since we were both worried about whether we are going to get to Hungary later on in our travels we would just go there on Tuesday. so we took an overnight train to Budapest. Which was really incredibly fun. Except for the border crossings at Slovenia and Croatia where they woke us up at 4 in the morning to check our passports. My favourite thing about Budapest is the surprising find that it is made up of two main districts - Buda and Pest! (as well as a third called Obuda, the hilly suburbs). I spent the two days here just wandering and coming across the monuments interspersed throughout the large city. Also exciting here was our lunch on the first day - we actually sat down in a restaurant and ordered food which was quite different from the usual panini or pizza on the street. Parts of Budapest look like any commercial city, parts are filled with old medieval lanes and Gothic architecture wonderful for wandering through. From the high castle hill I watched the sun set over Buda and had a wonderful view of the light reflecting off the commercial district of Pest across the river.
Since Budapest I've been traveling a lot, and spending less time in places, we came back to Italy on another overnight train, spent one night in Verona - the city of Romeo and Juliet, then went to Bologna, Pisa, and spent a disastrous night in Sienna.