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Published: October 17th 2008
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Ciao!
Last weekend my friends and I flew over the Mediterranean and landed in Venice. We spent a full three days there and pretty saw every inch of Venice, or at least that's how I felt after three days of straight walking. My friends Jordann and Brian and I arrived at Marco Polo airport about 9 30 pm on Thursday. Since we're smart, savvy travelers, we had zero checked luggage. We found a local bus which led us of the small bridge that connects Venice to Mestre (the mainland). After getting dropped off at the bus station, we managed to find a woman who spoke a bit of English who told us where we could find our hostel/hotel. After going over this weird bridge with short, but long steps and then another bridge twice, cuz we had no idea where we were going, we finally found our way to our hostel, Alloggi Gerotto Calderan which was located in Campo San Geremia, a little square. Our room was actually very big and quite clean. Jordann and I were relieved as we were the ones who booked the hostel and were really nervous about it.
The next morning we got up
and decided to just explore. We borrowed the Rick Steves, Italy 2008, and he told us to "get lost" so we did. We walked all afternoon, we found St. Mark's Square, the Rialto Bridge, and relaxed on the edge of the water. Every building in Venice is beautiful, even if a bit dilapidated. The cracked walls and chipping paint gives each house its own personality. The canals weave their way throughout and you never know when you might hit a dead end or cross a bridge. The sun was bright, the weather was perfect all weekend, 70-75 degrees. Did you know St. Mark's Square is flooded 100 days out of the year? Glad that didn't happen when we there...
In the afternoon, we met up with the first group friends, who took the train from Rome. Later several others and then finally, my two good friends, Kim and Alexia walked out of the train station. Alexia's train hit someone she thinks so she was stopped for two hours and Kim came all the way from Freiburg Germany to meet us. It was becoming quite a travel group. When we were coming back from the train station we realized our
hotel was in the middle of a protest! Fire, signs, banners, chanting, the whole thing! They were protesting about education I think, but it was definitely a sight! We wandered the streets with them and 11 of us had dinner at this small restaurant off a little canal somewhere in Venice, by the way, Venice is a bit of a ripoff so beware! Several of my friends and I went out on the town that night and had a great time, telling about our adventures from abroad. We ended up in another little campo on two benches, but of course got lost getting back to our hotel. Venice at night is VERY tricky and confusing I must say, so if you've had a few glasses of wine, it may take you awhile to get back. But we made it safe and sound before our 1 am curfew, yes we had a 1 am curfew, which will come into play later in my story.
Saturday, my friends and I were in full tourism mode. We strolled back to St. Mark's Square and headed up the Moor's Clock tower. When we arrived at the look out point, we had a 360
degree view of Venice. It was beautiful. You could every small island, all the canals, the Adriatic Sea, etc. That's when we started busting out Kim's Rick Steves Best of Europe 2008. He was prominent throughout our entire day.
After the Clock Tower, we waited in line to get into St. Mark's Basilica. That too was a masterpiece in itself. We weren't allowed to take pictures so you can google it and see it for yourself. The detail was incredible. Our last major tourist attraction of the day was the Doge's Palace, my personal favorite. The Doge was pretty much the figurehead of Venice. He did not have a lot of authority, but could not leave the city. He was also The Doge until he died. His palace housed all political and judicial activity in Venice, including a prison. We crossed the Bridge of Sighs, the last sight that prisoner's saw as they were taken down to the prison, I sighed because I was dying of hunger. The paintings were incredible, but my favorite part of the palace were the ceilings. Gold painted, wood-carved, mural ceilings covered the palace. The Hall of the Great Council was also a masterpiece
with numerous frescoes and portraits of every Doge. I felt so little in the gigantic room and realized that our architecture and style today is nothing like that of the past. We decided that being a Doge would have been a sweet job so "doge" is now a part of our vocabulary, an example being, "Venice is doge" or "you're such a doge." So spread the word, it should catch like wildfire.
Thanks to good old Rick, we ventured to "Sandwich Row" for lunch where we ate at a small sandwich shop that Rick recommended as we saw his pretty face in the window! For under $7 euro, I was actually full. By this time we again wondered the streets. We decided to stick with our low-budget mentality and took the Number 1 Waterbus(that Rick recommended) down the Grand Canal. Again, one of my very favorite parts of the entire trip. I saw the entire Grand Canal for 6.50 euro. The buildings are again incredible. The detail, color, the character of each house made me fall in love with the city even more. The lighting of the sun was perfect as dusk was just beginning to fall.
All
twelve of us met up again for dinner, pizza, calzones, pasta and vino. We were probably looked at as those silly, loud Americans but we all embraced it. After dinner we all went out and had a good time. Several of my friends and I were befriended by a few Italian boys who took us on another boat ride along the Grand Canal. It didn't get much better than that. After getting back to the hotel, we realized our other friends had not come back and it was almost 1 am... so I had to tell the front desk that my friends were lost and trying to make curfew. They came in right after 1 am, panting... and sweaty, but they made it.
Sunday, we walked through the Jewish Ghetto in Venice where they forced Jews to live, isolated from the rest of the population. We then did some last minute shopping... which turned into a race for my friends to make their trains. We were all running to the hotel to grab backpacks and hit the train station because we of course took the longest way possible back to the hostel. Venician signs failed us many times during
our weekend. We said goodbyes and headed to the airport, back to Barcelona. My friends and I were SURROUNDED by babies and kids on our flight. It was pretty miserable. I had forgotten what screaming babies sounded like until I listened to it for my entire flight back to the Big B.
All in all, Venice is a must see city in Europe in my opinion. It is unique and breath-taking. Beauty is found in all parts of Venice, but who knows how much longer this beauty will be seen...
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