Venezia (Venice)

Thursday (cont.):
We did not quite know what to expect out of Venice because it is, quite literally as we found out, surrounded by water. Venice is beautiful. Their idea of streets is really water. Imagine if every street with cars is really water with boats and there are bridges over each one. You wake up in the morning and go out to your boat instead of your car. Cars don’t exist, at least not in the mainstream, in Venice. Their public transportation system is the same as any subway system, but with boats instead of trains. It’s kind of hard to change that mindset, but it’s such a cool and pretty city that it was easy.

According to our research, Venice should not logically exist. It should be far underwater by now, but it is incredibly sad because the city is sinking at an alarmingly fast rate. I feel like it may soon be just another city swallowed by the sea and never to be seen again. I’m referencing New Orleans, for those who didn’t pick up on that. Venice is rapidly sinking and all of you should go view its charm before it’s gone.

Anyway, we got off the train and navigated the public transportation system (boats) to the mainland where our third and final hostel was. It was still raining at that point and we got a little lost, but eventually found it. We stayed at Hostel CasaLinga. It was my favorite hostel because it was not Americanized like the other places and had Italy charm to it—low ceilings with little, odd quirks. We got the luxury of having the 4-person room all to ourselves, so we didn’t have to worry about locking stuff up or anything. It was a nice place, despite the lack of towels and breakfast.

Starving, by this point, we quickly found a restaurant and ate spaghetti (plain, just the way I like it) before going to bed early.

Friday:
We woke up to a sunny, but slightly cloudy day. We weren’t risking not bringing our umbrellas, but we didn’t need them. It was the perfect day. Although, the day started out a little rough because we began with finding an ATM. Unfortunately for me, the machine ate my card, however two very fast-speaking Italian bankers got my card back and returned it to me after scanning my passport and card. I almost had a heart attack, but all was well.

We then decided it would be fun to take the one-hour boat ride to Murano, which is known for its glass blowing—Murano Glass, if you’ve ever heard of it. We got to actually watch people glass blow, which is much more difficult than one would think. It was pretty cool. Of course, there were also lots of glass shops with insane glass chandeliers that were gorgeous and other glass items. I bought a pair of glass earrings, so that made me happy. We stopped for lunch and gelato on the island before heading back to the main island.

We explored further the coast and San Marco’s piazza, which is the most well known place in Venice. There were tons kiosks to buy postcards and Carnival masks at. I couldn’t resist by the end. My obsession with masks got the best of me and I couldn’t resist a sparkling, purple mask. Carnival had actually just happened in Venice a few weeks earlier, so there was still tons of the confetti covering the pavement, which was cool to see. We saw the pigeons in San Marcos and went to the top of the bell tower where we saw yet another overhead view of an Italian city. Venice was beautiful from up high. We were cold so we went into another very unique cathedral that was in the square. It was gorgeous from the outside, because, like Il Duomo, it was not a normal cathedral. It was basically all mosaics and there was nothing plain about it. Everything was colorful and gorgeous.

After we thoroughly explored San Marco’s square, we took a boat to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, where she once lived, but converted it into a modern art museum before her death. I’m not a huge fan of modern art, but it was nice for this change of pace after all the Renaissance art in Florence and Rome. There were some very famous Picasso works there, as well as some Dali’s and Jackson Pollock’s.

We headed back to San Marcos and walked to the famous Rialto Bridge where we took a wonderful gondola ride through the water. The gondola was different than I expected. It was kind of commercial, not to mention overpriced (but for good reason, I suppose), but was completely worth it. Venice is just as I imagined from the movies and so much more. I loved it. It also looked like kind of what I imagine Greece to look like. We ate dinner at a touristy place right on the water overlooking the Rialto. We did the three-course meal deal, so I ate meat pasta, veal and, oddly enough, French fries, not to mention delicious white wine. It was a great first day in Venice.

Saturday:
After getting our full of glass, on Saturday we decided to head to the island of Burano, which is known for their lace making, and is also supposed to be quite cute and charming. It certainly was. The lace was beautiful, but the town itself was quaint and adorable complete with a marketplace and multi-colored houses (lime green, dark green, purple, pink, every color imaginable). We ate more ham pizza and gelato their before strolling the streets and the bridges their before heading back to the mainland.

Despite the fact that Maddy has a fear/hate of pigeons, she and Lauren really wanted to do what all tourists and locals do in San Marco’s piazza—feed the birds, right out of the palm of their hands. They bought a croissant and waited for the pigeons to come—and they did. They will really do anything for food, even jumping onto their arms and eating from their palms. At one point, there were at least 6 birds on Lauren’s arms at the same time. It was pretty hilarious to watch/record for future reference!

We walked again to the Rialto bridge area where we strolled through the streets that housed the high-end shops before eating dinner around the same area on the Rialto we ate the previous night. We did a meal deal again and I felt guilty for not eating much seafood in a fish town. Therefore, my friends convinced me to try calamari with potatoes, a plate-full of spaghetti, champagne, and coffee. The calamari was a chewy. I wasn’t a huge fan, but I would eat it again. We savored what we knew would be our last enjoyable moments on the island before heading back to the hostel to pack up for London.

Sunday:
So tonight we’re back in London. I did miss our flat and especially the Tube, which is by far the best (but most expensive) public transportation system we’ve found. Back to another normal and crazy busy week in London. We have a big journalism paper due at the end of the week and an all day trip to Stratford with a night football game on Wednesday.