Venice.. part Uno!

We took a quick walk around the streets of Venice once we checked in to our aparment, which was at about midnight.  The streets were completely deserted and beautifully lit, leaving us completely in awe of the surreal and almost theatrical setting that the city provided.  It also left us completely unprepared for what would be the most heavily touristed city on our tour.  Luckily, there were just so many of these narrow winding streets that one could get away from the tourists when the urge to go crazy was getting hard to contain.  I can't stress enough how incredible the lighting was in this city at night. 
 

 Ok, techincally the moon is doing a lot of the lighting in this shot, but take my word for it.. cool lighting all over the city. 

 Here we are waiting to start our secret palace thing tour.. Brian and Patrick are going over the itinerary (or perhaps comparing camera settings) while I succumb to the effect of jet lag, and a night of continually being woken up by mosquitoes.

Ok, everybody's ready to go check some secret stuff on a secret tour!  Unfortunately, you're not allowed to take pictures on the secret tour, so we don't really have much.. but check out Pat's blog as he loves taking pictures of stuff he shouldn't take pictures of!

Well we took a couple pics, but honestly, the secret stuff was..drum roll.. mostly administrative and bureaucratic.  There was a torture chamber, and some confinement cells which were creepy and definitely not there for mere administrative purposes.  I could tell you more, but it was a secret tour, and I don't want to alarm the Polizei, Carabinieri, Paparazzi or whatever.

Let's just say there were some interesting anges to snap here and there..

Here we are at Ponte Del Cristo...wooaoaaahh Ponte Del Cristo yeaaaaah!

Do, de do...  these are the quieter city streets I was talking about earlier.

Brian's going over some pictures.. notice Ponte Del Cristo there in the background.

The guy on the right side of this picture looks like he's seriously considering a Gondola ride.. the rest of his friends don't look so convinced.  Will he go it alone?  I don't know, we did not stick around to find out......

Surprise! Awesome lighting at night.. .goooo Venice!

 

What's better than awesome lighting?  That's right.. awesome lightning!!  Watched a fantastic thunderstorm after walking home through the pouring rain and getting soaked to the bone.  Did my best to catch a bolt with my camera, but could only get a slight arc..

 

Why is Patrick smiling so wryly?  Because he's about to order the greatest thing in the world...

....Ceviche!!!  (Although here it's called Insalata Di Mare)

..some Venice locals having their lunch beside us. 

Hangin the laundry.. just another day in Venice.  Sure Patrick is enjoying the greatest Ceviche of his life, but everyone else is just keepin on keepin on..they've seen it all before.