Venice is basically a Venice-themed amusement park

Yesterday some of us went to Venice for the day.  It's Carnevale right now, basically two-week long Mardi Gras (the craziest night of which is actual Fat Tuesday), and all of the major Italian cities, including Bologna, are in party mode.  I walked down Via Independenza today, and they had it blocked to traffic and the whole thing was covered in confetti, and little kids were wearing costumes everywhere.  Venice has the most famous Carnevale, and is in full-on tourist lockdown for it.

The train there was packed and we had to stand for the two-hour ride.  Hey, I could walk from Classe to Ravenna, so standing Bologna to Venice wasn't an issue.  We had a conversation with a nice guy on the train, who during a discussion of what cities were nice to see let me know that if I liked Ferrara's castle, Florence was basically an entire city made up of those.  I decided at that moment that I needed to get to Florence ASAP, and am going tomorrow.

The trip to Venice was organized by MeltinBo, a group that puts together activities for foreign students and Italians in Bologna.  I met a great group of Italian students, and that night back in Bologna we all went out together.  Anyway, we got off the train and walked out of the station...

Oh my goodness.  Venice was really, really crowded.  That bridge back there is packed from side to side.  Everyone's told me that Venice has a major tourism issue, and that it's really just a tourist city at this point.  It truly felt like a theme park.  It didn't feel like anyone did anything there, no industry or service businesses, just eateries and gift shops.  All of the signs were in four languages (Italian, English, French, German, the four languages of the transit system as well), and I heard a lot of American voices. Like the cartoon characters wandering Disneyland, Carnevale celebrators walked around in wildly ornate costumes that all attracted substantial crowds:

The really ornate, old-style costumes were great, but my real favorites had to be a group of senior citizens, all definitely over 65 years of age, in which the men wore bee costumes and the women were dressed as flowers.  I can't believe I didn't get a photo of them.  The gondoliers played the role of the ride operators...

The whole experience was very fun, but it didn't feel like we were seeing anything in particular, just kind of visiting the city as a whole as a single site.  It even felt like there was a pre-determined trail through the city, and that all of the tourists were just following the guided path.  This was the alley right before the Piazza San Marco:

It was a good day overall, and I really want to go back when it's not so crowded and I can check out some individual sites.  People are right when they say that at this point the city feels very superficial and manufactured.  I did a report last semester about the flooding in the city and rising sea levels--we came on a low-water day--and how there's generally a "dying city" sentiment among the citizenry and observers trying to do something about it.  I definitely saw that, and it'll be interesting to see how that plays out in the coming decades.

Anyway, Florence tomorrow, which if there are anywhere near as many castles as promised is going to be awesome.