Venezia, Rimini, and Pisa

For the first time since I've been in Europe, I actually planned some of the trip. I at least found a place to stay over the internet and looked at what I would need to do to get from the airport to the hotel. I found it pretty easily and since I flew out at 1050, and with a flight that was less than 2 hours I had plenty of time to roam around Venice on Friday. It was nice and hot and didn't have the feel of fall that Germany had when I left.

The Grand Canal



Piazza San Marco




View from San Marco Campanile






While the weather was warm, Venice still had signs that fall had begun



Neat statues



This guy is naked holding a frog...


Gondolas




Santa Maria della Salute



I hung out with two Australian girls on Friday night who were very nice and I was supposed to meet up with them the following day but forgot where we were supposed to meet up. Saturday night I hung out with some Americans and called it an early night so I could head out to San Marino early the next morning.

Night ride on a waterbus



Rialto Bridge


View from the Rialto Bridge


The only car I saw in Venice, and what a sweet ride it was (look closely at the decal wrapped around this American beauty)


Pirate Ship


I was surprised that you could see the Alps from Venice


View of Venice from the waterbus to Lido (another island that has a beach on it)


Like many of the places I've been, there were a lot of nice boats


This one was green which I thought was unusual


One of the many waterbuses that serve as the city's bus/subway system


A couple of water taxis. Most were made of fiberglass but some were wooden and beautiful.



View from my hotel room.


Early in the morning I got on a train to Rimini to go to the San Marino Moto GP. It turns out that the race isn't in San Marino, a small country within Italy, but closer to the coast in Misano Adriatico.

Looking out the train window on the only bridge into Venice


I spent the most I have at any race on the ticket (90 euro) and it was the most crowded of any race I've been to but it was a good nonetheless. Here's some of the racing footage...



I was in a great corner in which a lot of passes occurred. Here's Rossi overtaking Tony Elias for second...


Rossi's victory lap...the Italian fans went banana nuts crazy climbing over the fences to get to the podium. He's from Urbino which is less than an hour from here so this is his home race.





Let the Champagne flow (might have to view on fullscreen)


Rossi wore rabbit ears to the podium


After things cooled down I walked out on the track which was pretty sweet



Like every race I've been to, there were some neat things off the track as well. Like this turbine engine the Italian Military had set up. (Update: there's Arabic script on the flag that simply translates to "Italy")




I regret not racing, especially since these guys were terrible and I would've run laps around them, but I didn't feel safe leaving my bag (passport, camera, cell phone, laptop, etc.) with the sketchballs running the show.


I then headed down to the beach and on the way ran across a go kart track and couldn't pass it up (the lady seemed much more trustworthy to leave my bag with). The go karts were fast as heck (300+cc). They had these awesome donkey cart/motorcycle things.



I stayed the night in Rimini, a nice beach town and headed out to Pisa the following morning. I didn't have enough time to roam around Pisa but everyone I had talked to said to just see the tower and get out. When I got there though, I would've been nice to have a few more hours to walk around.




It was a fun weekend and I look forward to seeing my family next week in southern Italy.