Advertisement
Published: February 23rd 2008
Palazzo della Ragione
Heres a pic of the group outside of the Palazzo in PadovaWow, I had quite the packed weekend excursion. We had our first study trip to Padova and Venice...and wow. Padova was unexpectedly a really cool city. We visted the Scrovegni Chapel and saw some of Giotto's original frescoes (Giotto is credited with being the first realist painter of the middle ages). They had us sit in this room to change the oxygen level of our breath to create a more friendly environment for the frescoes...and we only got to stand inside the chapel for 15 minutes.
Then we traveled to other sites such as the Palazzo della Ragioni, and the Basilica di San Antonio. Both of these places were absolutely amazing.. its almost too much to type about.
After staying in Padova for one night, we picked up and took off for Venice. After about a 2 hour train, we arrived at the station. As SOON as we stepped out of the station doors, we were immediately greeted by the grand canal. It felt totally surreal to me, as I had seen it so many times before in movies and what not. Our hotel was surprisingly clean except for the fact that some how I've wound up with a
Hello!
Standing in a random Piazza in Padova huge bug bite on my cheek...from the pillow..gross.
ANYWAY, in Venice we visited Piazza San Marco, with the infamously agressive pigeons, Basilica di San Marco which was astoundingly gorgeous, as well as the famous San Rialto Bridge. Walking through the tiny winding alley ways of Venice seemed dreamlike. It was absolutely as I had imagined it....However, the one unfortunate thing is that Venice was TOTALLY full of tourists. And when I say full, i mean PACKED. I heard more english than Italian, and it was quite unfortunate. I felt like a lot of the Italian culture of the city itself had been lost to the capitalist nature of tourism. Everything was ridiculously expensive.
Todaiy we visited the Palazzo Ducale (gorgeously ornate) and took the 20 minute boatride across to Murano to look at all the glass. Unfortunately it was really cold and pretty foggy for the 2 days that we were there..but it made for a really interesting atmosphere to say the least. Sorry this entry kind of sucks but the pictures say it all... I'm SO tired, its been a full day of traveling for me but I must say I am a bit relieved to be
Berlusconi
This is a Vote Berlusconi for President campaign poster....are they serious? back in the relatively quiet town of Parma. The hectic tourism in Venice gets pretty exhausting.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.067s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0419s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
