RtW Cities: Venice
After a comparatively long time between holidays, summer has arrived to Zurich, complete with 30 degree weather (86F for those weird people) and this means it's time to travel! First city to add to the Round-the-World list is Venice, which can be reached from Zurich in about seven hours of train journey; and quite an impressive train ride it is, scenery-wise! (e.g. greenery and Alps like this ). But really, this trip was all about the island city itself - or, in reality, about 100 really small islands. My first impression, which stayed for the entire trip, was that this was the most touristy place I can ever remember visiting, and that beats Cape Town during the world cup and Athens just after the 2004 Olympics. Pretty much everything is set up for tourists - the main walkways are lined with stores selling Venice-themed everything, there are loads of handbag / novelty toy sellers who try to sell to random passers by the whole time, there are cafes, restaurants, pizz...