Grand European Adventure: Venice, Italy

We got into Venice at about 11:20 AM on Monday, March 24th and were shocked at how cold it was. Logiclly, I know that Venice is north and on the sea so it shouldn't be as warm as Rome, but still. I think Brighton was warmer than that and it's in England! We got out of the train station fairly quickly and caught the vaparetto (water bus) to the Rialto Bridge. Vaparetto are ridiculously expensive! Venice is small enough that you definitely can walk around instead of spending the 6.50 euro to take the water bus. But on the first day, with all our luggage, it was worth it. And you did get a nice view of the Grand Canal. I knew that Venice was an expensive city but it was still a bit of a shock looking at the prices on things. Anyway, we got to the Rialto Bridge stop, got off and managed to find our way to the room with few nagivational problems. The directions told us to walk to a restaurant and ask for this woman when we got there. Because we were in Italy, I was expecting to find it at the top of some Italian restaurant with some old, jolly Italian woman running it. I was way off. Instead, it was this Chinese restaurant filled with half the Asians in Venice, run by this old Chinese woman who didn't speak much English and probably didn't speak a lot of Italian either. And after we checked in, we were led out of the restaurant and down this little side street where the rooms actually were. It was definitely nice to have a big bed, a personal bathroom, and just not staying in a hostel. Good life choice for us. After a brief rest, we headed out to check ou San Marco Square and the Basilica San Marco. Both were tremendously impressive and large and it was interesting to see all of the Middle Eastern influences on the Basilica. However, what I found most interesting was that the floor of the church rolls because the foundation is only really solid on the perimeter and not in the center. After that we wandered across the Rialto Bridge, got lost in a non-touristy neighborhood and had an alright dinner. We then braved the cold to take night pictures but quickly returned to the warm room. Venice is definitely beautiful and picturesque but the prices, crowds, and weather annoyed me. A nice hot shower eased some of the crabiness, but still.

Tuesday morning started off somewhat early. We wanted to head down to the Accademia kind of around when it was opening to see DaVinci's Vetruvian Man among other things. When we got down there, we found out that the Vetruvian man was indeed at that museum but that we weren't going to be able to see it, for some reason still not clear to me. But, the musuem was free so we decided to go in anyway. I'm not the hugest art fan (I like it and I like museums but I'm not crazy obsessed) and this musuem wasn't super interesting. Some medieval, some Reneissance, but nothing great. Maybe they had cooler things in the rooms that were closed but I have no idea. We only were there for probably about an hour and then proceeded out. Afterwards we wanted to go see a glass blowing demonstration and looked for a Rick Steve's approved place in Piazza San Marco but to no avail; we couldn't find it. And then we didn't feel like paying the 10+ euro to take the vaporetto round trip to the island of Murano so we decided to just do some more wandering. We headed down to the very east end of the Venice fish to the neighborhood of Santa Elena. It was so beautiful and quiet down there- a wonderful break frm the crazy, crowded, touristy area of San Marco. There wasn't much to do there so we headed back to the main part of the island. We picked up lunch on the way (bread and cheese, obviously) and returned to the room to eat it (Venice is not at all picnic-ing friendly). After lunch and a brief siesta, we headed out to do some glass shopping. I was very picky about what I wanted and even though it seemed like it should be beasy to accomplish, it did take a while. We dropped off our purchases, headed out to dinner (a lovely little RS recommendation in San Polo- delicious shrimp scampi) and came back for some wonderful Italian pastries for dessert before crashing into bed.

We had to get out of the room by 10:30 on Wednesday so we got up at 9ish, showered, packed up and left. Unfortunately we did not have anywhere to store our bags for the day so our adventures were severly limited. Mostly we spent many hours slowly winding our way from Piazza San Marco to Piazzale Roma/Train station, stopping in campos along the way to sit in the sun and eat. In one of the campos, a guitarist, violinist and accordian player stopped by and serenaded us for a little while. I found it to be a little awkward, but kind of quaint/cute as well. Eventually we made it to where we wanted to be and I said goodbye to Matt and Steve as they headed to the airport and I headed to the train station. I miss the boys a lot- they were wonderful to travel with. Venice ended with me spending many cold hours in the train station, waiting for my 11 PM train to roll in.

Reflection on Venice: Very picturesque and unique, considering it's made of canals and there are no cars anywhere (no more crazy Italian motorists!). However, I would say it was my lease favorite of the Italian cities. There were WAY too many people there and it was WAY too crowded which just made me cranky. Also it was cold (althought, not too bad if you were in the sun) which didn't make me happy either. But it was something kind of special once you got away frmo the crowds. And we didn't try to pack too much into a day, which I thought was nice and relaxing. I want to use this vacation and explore and see the world, but I also don't want to be crazy stressed and tired all the time. I could see coming back to Venice as an old, somewhat wealthy person (too expensive for a college student) but I don't know if before then.

Reflection on Italy: It was amazing how different all the cities in Italy were. Rome was hectic and confusing but so historical and interesting. Florence was much more relaxing, just as historical and beautiful, with nice people, but crappy weather. Venice was very unique, full of cute little dogs, but too crowded, too touristy, too expensive and the people there weren't very nice. But I don't think I would be very nice either if I constantly had to cater to crazy tourists. Italy was very wonderful, and I had a grand time, but I was definitely ready for France and the French. Allons-y!