Venice, Florence, and Rome... OH MY!

I am officially on my “mid-semester break” from classes, which means my tour of Italy has started! The first city on the list is Venice (which is where I am now), then it’s off to Florence, and finally Rome. It’s just me and four other girls – I know, SCARY. But so far we’ve been doing good. Barcelona was definitely a good practice run for this one.

Venice is indescribable. It’s just beautiful. The city is very old, but in a cute, traditional way. It’s a great city to walk around because you find so many cute shops that you would have never found if you rode a bus all day. It isn’t commercialized at all, which is very surprising that the Starbucks and McDonalds of the world haven’t made their way inside it, but I’m glad they haven’t. It would’ve ruined the quaintness and beauty of Venice.

We actually arrived in Venice last night. We flew in Venice Marco Polo Airport from London Gatwick – there were no major problems, besides that our flight was delayed about one hour. When we landed, we had transportation to take us to our hostel, which was wonderful because I’m not really sure how we would’ve gotten there otherwise. And that would have been bad news for sure. Our hostel, which is technically a hotel, but we have five beds in our room, is very, very nice. I feel really safe staying here and everyone has been really helpful because they can probably tell that we need it.

We’re kind of far away from the central part of Venice though, so we had to take transport from the hostel to the city this morning. Then we rode the public transport boat as far we could towards Saint Mark’s Square – BUT there was a public transportation strike today (of course, right?) so we didn’t get too far. Fortunately, there is decent signage to help the tourists as much as possible. We grabbed a sandwich for a quick breakfast at a little local shop (I had a grilled wrap with mozzarella, tomato, and basil – DELICIOUS!) and headed towards St. Mark’s Square. Once we got there, we saw the Basilica, Campanile (an old lighthouse), and Palazzo Ducale - All had beautiful architecture. We paid to go to the top of Campanile where you see fabulous views of St. Mark’s Square and most of Venice. AMAZING.

After that, we just did some walking along the Canal Grande and the Bacino di San Marco, where we went to fun, little shops and found someone we knew! One of the guys from our London group was there too – how crazy is it that we actually saw each other in Venice? Crazy.

Next we were walking towards Santa Maria of the Friars (a church), when we met a gondola man and decided now was a good time to take a ride. It was tons of fun and I’m so happy we did it! We went along the little waterways between buildings and on the Canal Grande, so LOTS and LOTS of pictures were taken. We asked our man if he could sing and he said that it was a myth that all gondoliers could sing… but I don’t know if he was just saying that because he couldn’t. :)

Afterwards, we had lunch at pizzeria, where I had a spinach ricotta pizza – Mmmm, delicious. But not as delicious as the next thing we ate. Right next to Santa Maria of the Friars is a gelato (Italian ice cream) shop that is supposed to have some o f the best gelato in Venice and possibly all of Italy. And oh my gosh, it definitely did. One scoop of chocolate and one scoop of tiramisu – It doesn’t get much better than that.

For the rest of the time, we mostly walked all around town and down little side streets shopping. Of course, it was tons of fun. Venice is very famous for carnival masks, lace, and glass, so that’s what a lot of the shops had, besides the regular souvenir business. We found a market near Rialto, which was fun because really, who doesn’t love a good market? Afterwards, we made our way back to the bus station, had dinner, and waited on our hostel transport to come and bring us back.

All and all, it was a wonderful day. The weather was a little cloudier and chillier than I had planned for, but while we were on the gondola the sun DID make an appearance, so it’s all good. It’s just really hard to describe Venice though, because I’ve never been any other place like it. It almost seems surreal because so many other places (like Las Vegas and Hollywood) try to recreate it, but you just can’t capture its beauty. All the pictures I took don’t even do it justice. It has its own identity and is just really peaceful – a rarity in most cities.

Tomorrow we have a few hours left to spend in Venice before taking a train to Florence. I still can’t even believe this is happening… Am I seriously in Italy right now?!

Until next time,
Rachel

P.S. I'll post more pictures soon - when I have more internet time that I don't have to pay for! :)