Venezia

Day 30: Saturday

Woke up at 6:00am for the train to Venice with Elli! Despite being so tired, I was excited to go, and we got ready and headed out for the train station in no time. We found the train and our seats just fine, and it was a short ride to Bologna, where we had to get off and change trains. We found our other train and some seats right away, and the train was completely empty when we got on. We fell asleep right away, and I drifted in and out until we finally arrived in Venice two hours later. We got off the train and, in case we forgot where we were, the grand canal greeted us as we walked out. We put some sunscreen on, had a nice chat with a couple from Maine, and decided to just wander through the streets until we found San Marco. And that’s what we did. Venice is the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen, but its beauty is impossible to capture through photographs or completely soak in. The streets are narrow and confusing and winding because there are no cars or vespas whipping around corners about to kill you. We ran into dead ends because we would hit the water, and we’d have to back track and go a different way. If we were actually trying to get somewhere and not just wandering it would have been frustrating and annoying, but I loved it. We grabbed a slice of margherita pizza and sat on the steps of a church listening to a cellist and violinist while eating. We wandered for about an hour until we found the harbor. We knew we were getting close when we saw a giant cruise ship going by completely taking over the entire city. We wandered down it a ways until we encountered a gondola and decided to go for our ride, despite it being 80euro. It was completely worth it! Our driver was really nice and took us through the city and showed us Mozart’s house, Napoleon’s house, and Ponte Rialto. He also gave us a bit of history, telling us that Venice used to have 1,000 gondolas and they were historically the limo of the rich, but now they only have about 400 because motor boats have taken over. The ride was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done. It was just so peaceful and perfect, and it’s no wonder people wait their entire life to do it. Sadly, our ride had to end eventually, and our driver let us off right by San Marco square. All morning we had been alone and completely away from all the tourists, but now we were surrounded, and it seemed we could not escape them the rest of the day. We saw San Marco church, which looked very Russian/Eastern European compared to all the other Roman churches I’ve encountered. We decided not to go inside due to the line, the fee, and our dresses. We wandered down a bunch of touristy souvenir shops, but they were all so overpriced. Then we were hungry so we wandered down some smaller streets and found somewhere to eat. It was hard to find a place that wasn’t ridiculously expensive or that had nothing but seafood, but we found a nice little place and had pizza with fries. My waiter even told me I was eating my pizza wrong because I cut it instead of folding it! After lunch we wandered across Ponte Rialto and through more shops, wondering what we were going to do for four more hours. We found a piazza, got gelato/grinita and ended up taking a nap on the steps of a fountain in the middle for about a half hour. When we finally decided got get moving again, we walked back to San Marco, resigned and bought some overpriced souvenirs (because I really wanted a Venezia shirt), and then decided to start heading to the train station. We knew we had enough time so it was ok that we got lost somewhat, but we just followed the signs, and we found it without any problems. We were about an hour early, so we decided to sit on a bench in a park, but some guy started talking to us and seriously creeping me out, so we moved to the stairs of the train station. He followed us over there, but he finally went away. We sat on the steps for about a half hour, then went inside to find our train. We got situated in our seats, and a woman was nice enough to switch so we could sit together. There were some annoying American guys sitting behind us, shouting loudly at each other about stupid things like bars and chicks. I put my headphones in to escape the stupidity, and began to force myself to read Book III of Machiavelli. I finished by the end of the train ride, and it was about 9:30pm when we pulled in.

When we got home we found everyone getting ready to go out. I decided to go out with them, but I made a quick dinner first. We went to a place Kellie recommended for me, called the Lion’s Fountain. We found it overpriced and empty, so we decided to go back to the place we always go to by the Duomo, but not before we found the MSU t-shirt on the ceiling. We hung out at the Old Stove for a while (which has a really attractive bartender) then headed home for bed.



Elli and I on our Gondola



Gondola Driver

 

"Streets" of Venice



San Marco