VENICE

On Friday at 6:30am we departed north for Venice. The forecast for the weekend was not promising, cold and rainy, so I wasn't really looking forward to it-- Venice ended up surprising me a bit. But only a bit. When it's nice out, Venice is beautiful and amazing, but when it's high tide or raining it's miserable! It's wet, flooded, and smelly and unfortunately it was more rainy than nice. But when it was nice-- I loved it, especially Murano. Murano is the glass blowing capital of like the entire world. We got to have a private glass blowing demo. It's truly amazing to see them make these glass masterpieces in only a few short minutes. Since the glass can only stay hot for a few minutes, they have to work fast and not make mistakes. It was awesome.

The rest of Murano was beautiful, it was also a hot and sunny day which equates to a good day in Venice. All the canals and boats and carless streets were really cool, such a different way to live. You have to constantly walk over bridges, or take boat taxi's to cross the canals.

We had lunch and walked around the Island before taking a boat to San Marco. Since the islands of Venice are all manmade, like a few hundred years ago and all the islands are built on wood planks, the boats can't go to fast or it leads to more sinking. Global warming, mixed with some underwater drilling as well as natural sinking has lead to Venice sinking below sea level--hence the constant flooding and misery during rain. As annoying as it is, it's kinda cool at the same time. But since boats can't go to fast the ride from Murano to San Marco took like 45 mins and once we got to the dock it was another whole ordeal. Since there are no cars and its only a series of canals and only certain boats can go certain place, the point where we docked and our hotel was about a 15-20 min walk, luggage and all. Oh my god, let me tell you I now understand why everything is so expensive in Venice--it's all that man power. Everything one the island was hand carried there, and it's not easy going up and down all those bridges. (Yet, they sure are beautiful when you're not carrying anything)

We check into the hotel and Emily, Kaysee, Hope, Jordan and I all pass out on our beds for like 20 mins or so. Travel days are so tiring, especially when you're up at like 5am. (yes, I woke up at 5am and actually skyped Landon before he even when to bed. 6 hour time difference is crazy sometimes) At 3pm we were suppose to have a guided tour of San Marco's Basilica it was underwater and closed for the rest of the day--kind of a bummer but I wasn't really that upset. Really don't think I could see another church if I wanted to anyway. So we just got to have a guided tour of the Doge's Palace and the Prisons including crossing the Bridge of Sights. Our tour guide was this really awesome Venetian--according to Luca the best tour guide in all of Italy. She was our guide for the entire weekend. The Doge's Palace was pretty, we learned a lot about Venetian history and it's political system.

Before dinner I explored Venice a bit, just walked around and shopped. Venice has some really nice store mixed with a million glass stores and touristy crap. We had a group dinner at Da Stefano, authentic Venetian style cuisine. Since we didn't have anything planned on Sunday till 1pm, we all decided to go out and experience Venice nightlife. Haha, saying Venice nightlife is such a joke. There is no such thing as nightlife in Venice. After like 10pm the city shuts down for the most part. We ended up watching the England vs. Algeria World Cup game in the boys room while pre gaming before venturing out to find something to do. Luca told us that Venice was super safe, but super easy to get lost in. And both rang to be true. We ventured out to find the only club/bar we could find, ended up getting lost a bit and finally finding this American dance club that didn't open till 12:30am. It was crazy we had to ring the bell, and they guy was like it's too early, come back later, we close at 5am. Mind you it was 11:45pm. Crazy for a quite city like Venice, and open till 5am just craziness. We ended up going back and have a pretty good time, if you forget about the crazy Italians trying to creep. Jordan, Hope and I decided to go home before the rest of the crew, the bar ended up being really close to our apartment and we didn't get lost on the way home thanks to Jordan's fabulous navigation skills!

Saturday I slept in just long enough to catch the last few minutes of breakfast. (Can't sleep through free breakfast!) I decided to wander around Venice a bit. I decided that I might just hate tourists just as much as my Dad does. Venice is like the tourist capital of Italy. I have never seen more tourists in one square, except maybe Times Square on New Year's Eve--that ridiculous. Needless to say, I gave up wondering pretty quickly and decide to check out all the super expensive stores and just check out all the super expensive stuff I can't afford. After a quick lunch it was time to meet up with the group for our guided tours of the day. The sky was threatening rain so I packed my rain jacket (thanks Allie!) and umbrella. Turned out to be a very rainy day so it was a good thing I had it. First off ee took the "traghetto" the gondola taxi service to cross one of the canals to get to the San Polo District.

From there we toured the Scuola Grande di San Ricco, the Friar's Church and walked to the Rialto Bridge. Lots of Venice history, and art.

On the way back from the Rialto we got lost again, so lost we needed to have a gelato break, which wasn't too bad at all. haha. It was actually kind of fun to get lost. We got to experience more of the city that way. When we finally made it back to the hotel it was time for a nap. :) Venice was really nice because it was a relaxing weekend, not quite as fast paced as the other weekend trips and we had lots of free time. We had dinner on our own, so we shopped around for the best food for the best price and settled on this cute little restaurant near the hotel. Ended up being such a great meal, and even better company :)

After dinner Hope, Jordan, Allyson and I decided to take a night gondola tour. Kind of expensive but the only way the truly experience Venice. We had a great time, got to see the Grand Canal and some really cool historic sites. The only thing that was missing was Landon. You always here how romantic gondola rides are and it's very true. Wish you were there Landy! :) But regardless it was a blast, probably my favorite thing about Venice. We tried to get our gondola driver to sing for us, and he did for a minute but then got shy when another driver came around the corner. haha it was really cute. It also started raining a bit towards the end of the ride, but it was kind of bittersweet.




Sunday was kind of a bust. The plan was to go to the Jewish Ghetto and walk all around another part of Venice, but it was pouring and noone wanted to take a three hour walking tour in the rain. We settled on going to another museum, checking out some more Venice art to pass the time. Like I said before, rainy Venice is no fun at all so it was miserable Sunday. Plus we had to trek all the way back to the dock with our luggage, in the rain, in the cold, and over bridges for the entire 20 minute walk. Not fun at all. I was very ready to go back to the comforts of Florence at that point. But it was an ordeal to get back-- boat ride to the bus, bus ride home, walk back to the apartments before finally getting back home. As soon as we got back to the apartment I realized I was starving and so was the roommates. We ended up getting a group together to go back to Il Gatto e La Volpe, a true a favorite. Overall, Venice was a good weekend but I'm not gonna be rushing back.