Taken in the guesthouse 'Venice Rooms', which was located in a town outside Venice. The greatest advantage of all is the common kitchen, where we can display our talented cooking skills. Haha... Oh well, it was an enjoyable and cheap meal. We just went to the nearest supermarket and bought frozen pizza, lasagne and drinks. It was definitely sumptuous! Just imagine, we had 2 appetizing pizzas, 1 tempting beef lasagne, 1 bottle of Coke (which I swear that it doesn't taste like the ordinary coke), 1 bottle of carbonated orange drink (it's just hard to find non-carbonated water anywhere in Europe) and a whole pot of instant noodles!!! Haha... All that and it just cost us close to 8 Euro (S$16)! Believe me, that was considered to be a low-priced meal. After lunch, it was time to take a bus which brought us back to Venice.

Above is a picture of the motorised waterbus (aka "vaporetti"). This is the most common mode of transport in Venice. I do realise that the waterbuses are always very packed due to the large numbers of tourists in Venice. Seriously, I wonder if it is very inconvenient for Venetians who have no private boats of their own and will have to squeeze in the bus with the rest of the visitors? I will certainly not like it if I'm a native, since there is a high possibility of missing the bus due to long queues.

Photo of a typical bus stop in Venice. I was beginning to get a headache while waiting for the bus in the bus stop, since the bus stop couldn't stop moving from left to right and vice versa.

That is a water taxi. The owner of the guesthouse, that we stayed in, told us that taxis in Venice are very expensive and it would be a wiser choice to take the water buses. Thus, we didn't even try since we are on a tight budget. Das ist schade.

Took this photo while on the water bus. The buildings were pretty far, so my friend could only capture my head with the buildings and the private boats. Haha...

This is taken while we were taking the bus to go around the 'Grand Canal'. We were approaching the 'Rialto Bridge'. The whole route around the 'Grand Canal' takes around 1 hour. After I got down from the bus, I never like stepping on solid land as much as I did then.

Yeah!! I'm holding the Italian flag!!!

St. Mark's Square in Venice. There are hundreds of pigeons in St. Mark's Square, with several stalls selling food for the pigeons. I noticed that many tourists purchased the pigeon feed and like to place the food on their palms,shoulders and even on their faces. It was quite a sight, looking at flocks of pigeons 'attacking' the man, who just stood there like a scarecrow.

Picture of the 'Gondola' on the Grand Canal. My friends and I definitely wouldn't miss the chance of sitting on the Gondola. Man, it was expensive! We had to pretend to walk away before the man rowing the Gondola agreed to reduce his price to 70 Euros (S$140). Hehe... We were great bargainers in Venice. I took plenty of photos while on the Gondola, including the house that belonged to the infamous womanizer Casanova. However, all the photos were gone now. Bless that one particular guy... ><

Alrighty! It's time for us to leave Italy! Our next stop would be Zurich, Switzerland. We had our dinner in a restaurant in Venice before boarding the train. It was the best Italian meal that I ever had. The spaghetti, lasagne and pizza were unbelievably delicious! I haven't tasted pizza that was as good! It's certainly of a higher standard than the pizza I ate in Pizza Hut. However, all good things come with a price. That meal was the most expensive meal that I had ever eaten during the one-month Europe trip.

In honest opinion, Venice is undoubtedly one of its kind. I wouldn't describe Venice as beautiful, however it is undeniably unique and has its own irreplaceable and distinctive essence. Probably deserved a 7.5/10.