"Smile and be happy. You are in Venice." (-Deborah Horne)

“To build a city where it is impossible to build a city is madness in itself, but to build there one of the most elegant and grandest of cities is the madness of genius.” (-Alexander Herzen)

Venice is truly the Queen of the Adriatic.

Several years ago, I spent some time in this most magical of places that's like no other, and I was captivated as so many others have been.

I was there during the summer months, when the evening cafe concert music filled the Piazza San Marco, and the gentle waters lapped against the square. The pigeons that flocked to the square during the daylight hours disappeared for the night. In their place, people danced to the sounds of the dueling musicians around the piazza, and the Caffe Florian, built in 1720, with its ballooning white curtains over arched colonnades, opened its arms to me, as it has to visitors for centuries.

Everywhere in Venice, there are boats: vaporetto that carry you from island to island, and the wonderful gondolas seem to glide effortlessly, shimmering across the water. One wanders through Venice as through a maze, discovering beautiful piazzas at every turn, but here is a maze where you could willingly remain lost forever.

There is something so different in

Venice from any other place in

the world, that you leave at

once all accustomed habits and

everyday sights to enter an

enchanted garden.

(-Mary Shelley)