Luckily it did. The view just was not worth the effort or the expense. I decided to go to San Gimignano on Sunday rather than Monday, in order to have more time there before heading to Siena for the Palio, and it was so difficult to drag myself away from Venezia. I really wanted to spend more time there. It was beautiful, but up close many houses were quite old and falling apart.
Maintenance seems to be unknown here.
After two days in Venezia and Padova I had a really good feeling about Italy, but I'm not sure why. The people in the shops and restaurants seem very nice and friendly. I was really glad because I had been dreading coming to Italy for some reason. I thought that it would be hard to travel here and that I would get a lot of hassles. I thought that it would be inefficient and run down and that the people would not be nice.