Trust noone

Buongiorno!

Well I must say that Italy so far has been an emotional roller coaster!!

Lets get the bad shit out the way first.....

So the long of the short of it is that some dude in my hostel stole 2 of my 3 passports, 200 odd euro, my ipod, my camera and my cellphone!! Life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The guy that took my stuff played me like a fiddle... fed me bullshit stories about his job, his life and even his name. He was a nice outgoing guy who bought me drinks and even trusted me with his own wallet!! He seemed like a trustworthy good honest type! How wrong I was!!! I stupidly left my things in the dorm hidden in my bag for 1 hour. Stupid!!! Came back to find everything gone..... Curiously though he left my credit cards and one passport.... how kind of him!!!

He originally told me that he would be staying in Florence for a while and that he would come to Pisa with me on Monday. He dissapeared last night .... never to be seen again. I talked to the hostel staff in the morning and we looked at a copy of a document that they had for this man's booking. Turns out his name is Paul, not Ari and he is from Canada, not California!! I now know beleive that he was scamming me the whole time.... What a douch!

I have learnt 2 lessons from this experience. 1 - is trust noone! (except your friends and family of course) and 2 - material things mean nothing!

Anyways such is life.... I now have a new phone number (+39 327 068 2020) but no camera to take photos :( Oh well it is more about the experiences right??!!! The blog shall continue as my record of this amazing trip!!!

Dont worry about me guys! Honestly, I am/was pretty upset, but I am ok! Life goes on....

Ok and now for the good......

Venice! The city of Gondolas, canals, glass, crazy loud italian men and great food! (As I had written my travel notes on my Ipod until now, I will attempt to share my experiences from memory). I arrived in Venice in the evening and it was bucketing down! The lonely planet had let me know that finding cheap accomodation in Venice is difficult so I headed to the only hostel listed. I arrived, totally soaked, only to find out that there was no vacancy! Luckily the receptionist was kind enough to ring around and find me a place! She sent me off to a one star hotel situated in a conviently central location!

The rain stopped the next morning, thank G-d!, and I headed out to explore the city. Venice consits of a collection of islands, canals, bridges and alleyways. With the exception of one island and a small block of venice proper, there are no cars to be seen... just ferries, boats and gondolas. The public transport system is great and consists of a series of ferries that go around the islands stopping at floating bus stops. There are also taxi boats and gondolas, if you have the money! I bought myself a 3 day pass and after 4 boat rides it had paid for itself!

My first location to visit was the awe-inspiring San Marco square. I took the number 1 boat-bus down the Grand Canal. This trip is a must as it gives you a great view of Venice as you zig zag yourself down the main boat "highway". San Marco square is home to the San Marco Basillica, a truly amazing Catherdral with beautiful domes and golden paint work. Across the square sits a huge bell tower made from red brick. I took the lift to the top and was blown away by the gorgeous view! The 360 degree view reveals canals and marvellous grand churches (which there are many!!) scattered throughout. Also in the square is the Doge's palace (home to the historic governors of Venice), a funky clock tower and millions of tourists.

I decided that it was important to explore the city by foot as well as by boat and so I invested in a walking guide (only 4 euro and also works as a discount card) and followed the itineraries suggested for the San Marco district, the Castello district and the Ghetto. The winding streets, alleyways and squares reveal a thriving city packed full of restaurants, designer stores, tourist traps and boutiques. There are so many churches to see in Venice that after going to 5 I decided I had had enough!

I really wanted to do a Gondola ride but at 80 euros an hour, it was not going to happen! Luckily you can have a 30 second experience, by crossing the Grand Canal for 50 cents! Tick this one off the list!

The next day I decided to go check out the Ghetto. This is the Jewish area of Venice. It has a fascinating history and in fact was where the word ghetto came from! Originally there was a metal foundry in this location which is old Venitian is pronounced Jetto. When the Jews came in the 15th century their Ashkenazic pronunciation changed the word to ghetto, as we know today. Jews that lived in Venice had to live in the ghetto, and were only allowed to leave by day. They were also only allowed to have certain professions such as money lending. Entering the Ghetto you notice the tall buildings, as real estate was limited so the Jews had to build upward. The spainsh jews arrived later after they were kicked out from Spain and brought great wealth and connections to Venice. Because of this the Sephardi Jews were allowed special priveliges, such as building outside the ghetto and building freestanding synagogues (as opposed to synagogues hidden inside buildings like the Ashkenzim had to do).

I went to the Jewish museum and did the Shule tour. This was worthwhile, as we could visit 3 of the original shules generally closed to the public. We were shown both Sephardi and Ashkenaz, both very much influenced by the Venitian artistic styles. You can spot the syngagoues from the outside only by small domes and large windows in sets of five, to symbolise the 5 books of moses. Today there are only 100 or so Jews that live in the Venice. However there is a kosher restaurant, Chabad house and Yeshiva, 1 active synagogue and a few jewish shops selling touristy venitian style menorahs etc.

Ooo that reminds me.... Every where you go in Venice you see Venitian masks by the truck load!!! I really wanted to buy one but to schlep it around would be a hassle!

I grabbed lunch at the kosher restaurant, called Gam Gam. I ordered a delicious pasta dish with a creamy green sauce! Yum!

After lunch I went to explore the Rialto region which is famous for its impressive bridge (one of 4 that cross the grand canal, but by far the most impressive), and the extravagant markets. One part of the market sells all sorts of touristy junk from I heart Venezia t-shirts, to Venitian masks that are way over priced. It is still however fun to wonder through and experience the atmosphere. On the other side are the fruit and veges markets (and on certain days fish markets) where you can buy food that is also overpriced! See the theme here? Venice is expensive!!!!

The next day I took a trip on the public boat-bus to the Island of Lido. A long thin island, which boasts Venice's best beaches. It was weird to get off the boat and be contronted by buses and cars! I walked down to the beach just to have a quick look. Nothing much to see except for some Pakistani dude trying to sell scarves to keep out the cold!

I wanted to check out some Venetian art, and the best place for this is the Academia gallery. The gallery was quite impressive with some quite ancient works, mostly from the insides of churches.

On my last day it was raining again!!! Yay for me! Actually it was bucketing down! I can not actually complain because all in all I have had maybe 3 days of rain on my whole trip! I wanted to go out to Murano island as it is the home of Venetian glass so I grabbed my jacket and off I went. The boat ride was a bit rough - lucky I dont get sea sick! I tried to explore the island but the rain was too bad so I had a quick look in the windows of some of the funky glass shops and then I popped into the glass museum. The museum houses a collection of glass from Venice over the last 500ish years, showing the progression in glass making techniques and styles. Some very interesting and strange pieces were on display.

That evening I met up with some couch surfers (including a kiwi dude!). One guy was from Venice and he showed us around some interesting places that I had not discovered which was nice! On returning to my hotel I was amazed at how high the water level had risen! It had even started to flood the entrance to my hotel!!! I was told Venice is sinking, but did not expect to see whole roads dissapear under water!!

Not sure when I did this, but I also visited the grand Salute church that sits at the entrance of the Grand Canal. It is truly impressive from outside, but the inside is suprisingly dull!

Goodbye Venice.............. Hello Florence!!!!

I managed to find a cheap hostel quite quickly in Florence. I dumped my stuff and then headed off to the first must-see: The Duomo - this basillica suddenly appears as you turn the corner of any of the downtown main streets. Unlike many other large catherdrals, it is located in the heart of downtown and surrounded by apartment and shopping buildings. The decoration of the church is dramatic, with its amazing white facade and impressive red brick domes. I must say that the Duomo is the most impressive church i have seen on my travels! Inside is just as impressive with high ceilings as well as walls plastered in amazing artwork and stained glass. Outside the church is a large bell tower, also ornate in design. There is no lift to get to the top so I decided to pass!!

There are 2 must see galleries in Florence. The first is the Academia gallery which although small houses the famous David, carved by Michelangelo as well as other interesting Italian renaissance works. Next stop is the Uffizi gallery. This gallery is huge and extremely popular with tourists. My advice is to buy your ticket online, because I waited for 1.5 hours standing in line to get in!!!! It was definetly worth it - the gallery contains many of the greatest works by the Renaissance legends including DaVinci, Michelangello, Botticelli, Donatello and Raphael. The one painting that stood out in my mind (maybe because I have seen it before and I dont know much about renaissance art) was the birth of Venus by Botticelli.

Florence is a small city so very easy to walk around. I think I have walked just about the entire city! The first thing you notice, beside the amazing architecture, is the amount of American students! Tuscany houses many international schools, where students (mostly from the US) come to study Italian and art history. It is kind of cool because it feels like a student city and there are lots of student deals to be found throughout. I walked down to the Piazza della Signoria, a square that contains the Palazzo Vecchio and an interesting display of statues. One in particular stands out - a carbon copy of David. The David statue used to stand here, so a copy was placed for those who can't afford to go see the real thing (don't think that is the real reason lol).

Continuing through the winding streets you come down to the river and the Ponte Vecchio bridge. From a distance it looks like a whole bunch of funky small apartments were build on the edge of a bridge. When I walked across I discovered that the the apartments were actually all jewellery shops. Originally there used to be butchers along the bridge, but the mayor of the city wanted something more classy so he kicked them out and replaced them with goldsmiths which over time evolved into jewellery shops.

Thursday night was St Patricks day. I went out to a local Irish pub, and enjoyed a few green beers! I met lots of students from all over the world! Good times!!!

Shabbat: I went to the local Synagogue for services. I was truly suprised at how amazing and huge his old shule is! In true florence style it has huge beautiful domes and amazing paintwork inside and out! The service was done in the traditional italian way and the voice of the chazzan echoed throughout the huge interior. The shule is weird because there is a pipe organ at the front - kind of felt like a church a little bit! After the service I went to the local Chabad for dinner. The Chabad rabbi is an older man and he was orginally sent out by the Rebbe to look after the Jewish students. Apparently there are 500 Jewish students in Tuscany every summester. The dinner was nice and the guests were a mixture of Israelis, American families and students. There was so much good food - I couldnt even finish my chicken!!!

I went to the morning service on Saturday and was back at Chabad for lunch. I was chatting to the Rabbis youngest son (he is one of ten kids!!) and he took me on a walking tour around the city and up to piazzale Michelangelo - a lookout spot up a small hill. The view from the top is like a perfect postcard panoroma. The grand churches of the city pop out across the skyline in all their glory. Even the great synagogue dominates the eastern part of the cityscape.

I went back in the evening for Purim. The service was kind of boring as there were no young people and no organised party!! But at least I can say I made the mitzvah of hearing the Megillah!

I planned on going out on Purim day to Bologna, where a large student Purim party was to be held but due to my misfortune with my stuff being taken I had to unfortunately cancel that plan! Oh well.. you win some, you lose some!! So instead of stressing myself even more I just had a chilled day including visiting the Strozzi gallery which houses an impressive collection of Picasso, Dali and Miro works. It is a unique gallery because it is disaplayed anti-chronologically and you truly get a feel for how the artists influenced eachother.

Tomorrow I will pop over to Pisa to see the famous tower and on Tuesday I am off to Rome.

I hope everyone is well!

Ciao