Front Gate of Santa Maria (Venice, Italy)

As soon as I stepped into Venice (by the way it was early in the morning), Asian tourists have already flooded the whole plateau in front of the central Santa Lucia train station. They seemed to rush for making as much photos as possible with their huge cameras and selfie sticks which already went to my nerves since I am not a huge selfie fan but at this point I have no other choices except to accept my destiny. I did not had lot of time, maybe just a few hours until my departure for Bologna and because of that I went through the different Venice streets to enjoy sunny morning but also and to check out the couple of small nice shops, important cathedrals and eventually some museums.

(Rio Del Malcanton, Venice)

Photo taken by Igor L.

Someone had already wrote a long time ago that if you are going to Venice for the first time ever simply be ready to accept that you will completely get lost in the labyrinth of its streets. In these situations regular tourist maps rarely helping but somehow it always turns out to be good and you can see the things which you never planed on a regular route. One of those streets that I particularly liked a lot was Rio del Malcanton and I even managed to find a good Pizza place next to it! In this ancient town everything is so expensive but if you go into the little remoter parts of the Venice you may have a chance to find a good souvenirs and food for more then reasonable prices.

(Front Gate of Santa Maria, Venice)

Photo taken by Igor L.

Among the other things, main reason why I decided to first stop into the Venice, except the famous water channels and other attractions is that I was previously been able to often see Santa Maria Della Salute cathedral on a variety of images, postcards as well as to read about it in some prospects but also and in one very popular poetry from my country that deeply engraved into my memory from a young age. Plan was to go directly to the place where cathedral is, so after a little bit of walking and getting lost on the opposite side of the channel I was finally in front of the Santa Maria Della Salute where I took this great photo of sculptures at the front gate entrance! Cathedral was unfortunately closed and my disappointment was huge...

(Old Faded Facades , Venice)

Photo taken by Igor L.

Since I did not succeed in my primary attempt to get into the Santa Maria Della Salute cathedral, I was very sad and went back to the plateau of Saint Mark's where I spent some time around together with pigeons army and tourists who waited in the line to enter into the Basilica di San Marco. Before my departure back to the Santa Lucia station I passed a several beautiful squares, churches, I saw the faded facades on homes and cruise ships that are docking and unloading people which particularly annoying local Italians who are struggling with this scenes already for a long time. Back then I had no idea that life will bring me back here again in a just few years to see everything that I had missed out on this day and even something more but about that story I will write more in the next few posts.