Oasis in crowded Venice #GoneOffbeat

Venice is dying !It will be the next lost town! Venice is slowly going underwater! It won’t be around in next 5 years! All these doom predictions ensured Venice’s position in our epic Europe trip. Not that I would have missed it for anything.

But the  tourist scene in Venice were going mad.Here you understand the term'over tourism'.The place is thronging with tourist young and old  and of every nationality. By an estimate in 2019 ,the year we went 5.5 million other tourists too visited Venice. Its almost 10,1000 tourist per day! Venice in a city quarter of size of Delhi. Ofcourse ,we Indians are used to crowds so for us it was no big deal.

Wrapped in our own cozy bubble and happiness of finally coming to city of dreams one really doesn’t bother much about the rest of 10,000 tourist but unfortunately that throng of people mean in all popular spots like St Mark Square, Rialto bridge etc there was hardly any place to stand, let alone take a cozy family picture.

Anyway, as old timers say the character of a city is exposed in its dusty nooks and corners, so of we went ponding the narrow streets of city of canals.

Italy is hot in August and Venice was no exception. By midday we were ready to drop. The gondola tour was yet to be done but we wanted it to be the last experience before we bid adieu to Venice.Even the upteen gelato was not helping and the boys were getting listless and cranky when we stumbled into this OASIS.The Natural History museum. 

https://msn.visitmuve.it/en/home/

We stepped inside as no opportunity to eduate school going kids should be missed. Okay, okay I accept.The real reason was to get out of sun, find a cool place to rest for a while and then tackle the rest of Venice.

Museums are always educative and fun . This one was no exception. In cool surroundings you can marvel the natural history of the region starting with the very impressive skeleton of dinosaur. Recall that each fragment was carefully extracted using a scalpel and tiny brush. Now do  you admire the patience and care of all those Paleontologists (I googled that term !) 

Its hard to take pictures inside any museum and this one was no exception. But room after room was full of delight. Suddenly the kids were no longer tired. I removed my shoes and walked bare feet till the guard caught me and ordered me to wear them again. The African section was our favourite and no prize for guessing that.

The courtyard was a delight in itself and provided the musch needed opportunity to rest and gather strength for further walk.

The trip ended with mandatory gondola tour which is an experience in itself as the gondolier navigates narrow canals and call out to warn other gondoliers as they approach a corner or turn.Apparently,there is a hard training to undergo to qualify as a  gondolier.

Venice can be crowded,hot,tiring but do look out for places with low toursist footfall and you will carry back long lasting memories.