Please excuse the long wait, but here it is!
Venice!
The Thursday we left, I got up a little bit
earlier than usual since breakfast had been pushed back to accommodate our
early departure. After eating, I headed out to the Limo to pick up some snack
bars in case we didn’t get breakfast at the hostel we were staying at in
Venice. When I went back to the villa, however, I discovered that the early
hour meant that the door I had gone through was locked for those trying to re-enter.
Bad omen, eh?
It was pretty cold outside in my t-shirt and
pants, and it seemed that, no matter how loudly I yelled for help, no one could
hear me. So after quite a few minutes of desperately worrying about being left
behind, I finally went to the door leading to the living room (which doesn’t
open) and called in through there. Luckily, someone heard me and let me in
through the other door. However, they couldn’t help mentioning that the other
entrance to the villa was currently unlocked.
Ooops!
So I went back up to my room, finished
packing, and walked down the hill with the other students. At the bottom, we
boarded a big bus (I got two seats to myself to stretch out on!) and set off
for Venice.
For the first half of the four-hour journey,
I mostly drifted in and out of full awareness (though not quite sleeping) while
listening to music. The bus stopped at a gas station close to noon, and we all
got out to buy food or to use the facilities. I ended up buying a chicken
sandwich and a chocolate muffin, both of which were good and very filling. I
ate them at the station and chatted with Claudia, Gianni, and some of the other
students.
After 30 minutes, it was time to get back on
the bus, and we started off again. Eventually we reached the bridge to cross to
get to Venice, and the bus stopped for a bit. We speculated that maybe we had
to walk from there on in, but luckily the bus began moving again soon.
And then we were on the bridge and could see
the water stretch on for miles. It was spectacular and we all really woke up
and got excited at that point. When we reached the bus drop off point (just up
the Grand Canal from the train station), we got off the bus to discover that
the sun was brightly shinning and that the weather was wonderfully warm
compared to Arezzo. This caused a little discomfort for me since I was still
wearing a thicker jacket because of the temperature in Arezzo, but I was
definitely not going to complain!
From the bus stop, we then proceeded to walk
a very long way down alongside the Grand Canal (to a little past the Rialto,
but I didn’t know that at the time) and then away from the canal into the main island.
Everywhere I looked on that walk, I saw so many shops, restaurants, street
vendors, and, of course, spectacular views.
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| Our first sights of Venice |
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| Our first sights of Venice |
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| Our first sights of Venice |
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| Our first sights of Venice |
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| Our first sights of Venice |
Eventually we reached the hostel, and I know
that everyone’s jaws dropped when we saw it. Both inside and out, it looked
like a very old building, and the facilities inside were spectacular. In the
room I shared with six other people, our ceilings and walls had frescos all
over them, which completely made up for how tiny our cots were. We also had
bath/restrooms that were separate and down the hall from our rooms. However,
this never really was a problem and the only unenjoyable part of our rooms was
how there was no way to block out noise and that the beds squeaked.
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| Our hostel |
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| Our hostel |
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| My room |
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| On the wall of my room |
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| On the ceiling of my room |
Nick and I then found a pizza shop where he
bought a slice, and we then went to the plaza to meet up with everyone else.
With Gianni and Claudia leading the way, we then walked to the Ponte Accademia,
across the Grand Canal, and to the Guggenheim. After exploring half of the
museum, I wasn’t that impressed by the art (though the collection was amazing);
however, when I crossed to the other side of the museum, I ended up finding
some paintings that I was blown away by. In the collection, there were a few
paintings by Maxwell Ernst, who I had never heard of before. He did very
fantastical paintings of humanoid creatures, and I absolutely fell in love with
his paintings “The Antipope” and “The Bride.” I ended up staring at them for
quite a while, but I eventually was ready to go and began to look for others
who would want to leave.
Unfortunately, my search was fruitless, and I
ended up hanging with others for a while (and taking pictures on the outside of
the museum facing the Grand Canal).
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| The Guggenheim |
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| The Ponte Accademia |
Eventually, some people went to leave and I
joined them. However, soon outside, they stopped in a few shops, and I decided
to head out on my own in hopes of finding two shops on my list that were nearby.
I eventually found the street that
one of them was on, but everything was closed and it was getting dark so I
headed back across the Ponte Accademia. Once across, I actually bumped into
another group of Accademia students, and I walked back with them to the hostel.
It was good that I found them since it
actually ended up being really difficult to find the hostel again. We ended up
accidentally walking to the Rialto (where the girls found a jewelry shop they
loved. I was not as impressed—the beadwork was really cheap) before we were
able to re-orient ourselves and find our way back. Unfortunately, Venice never
got really easier to navigate. None of the streets are straight, there are so
many side streets that are not on any map, and the signs pointing you to important
places never are frequent enough to be helpful. I have a great sense of
direction, but Venice completely baffled me, and I got lost numerous times.
However, after Venice, my sense of direction has improved a ton.
From the hostel, everyone then headed out
again to go to dinner with Claudia and Gianni. They took us to a restaurant on
the other side of the Rialto and around some twisty passages. Once there, the
fare proved to be very bare but expensive (15 euro for plain pasta and some
cookies. Bleh). However, Claudia and Gianni made the night so entertaining that
it was worth it. During dinner, Claudia had us play a game of charades where we
acted out the qualities of foods and had people guess what we were, and Gianni
sang to us a song in Spanish, which was beautiful. There also was this random guy who would occasionally stick
his head into our room and yell trying to get us to yell back (which ended up
being more funny than annoying).
Once we left the restaurant, Gianni and
Claudia decided they should lead us to a club. After getting advice and
directions from several different people, they began to lead us on one of the
strangest walks I’ve ever taken. In the dark of the night, Gianni lead us
through twisting alleys all the while having us repeat chants after him or
copying his movements like ducklings. There was also a plaza where the entire
group ended up doing a Greek circle dance (and some native Venetians stopped to
watch us) and another where there was a large fountain or ice-skating rink that
still had ice on it that we all decided to climb over the metal railings to
play on.
Eventually, we reached the club/bar area, and
Gianni and Claudia left us to determine our plans. I ended up heading back
immediately with some people who weren’t interested in staying out. We got very
lost attempting to find our way back (bumping into the yelling guy from the
restaurant on the way), but eventually the combined powers of Meredith and I
eventually found the Rialto, and we were able to easily get back from there.
The next morning, I got up after 8am and went
to breakfast at the hotel (I had cereal and some bread). Since we already had
to buy a waterbus ticket to get to our one and only class that afternoon (which
we would be compensated for), almost everyone opted to spend 3 euros more to
just buy a day pass for the waterbus (which we would not be compensated for)
and to see the outer islands. Nick and I headed out earlier than everyone else
and found a waterbus station close to the hostel. We then took the waterbus to
the cemetery island.
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| The cemetery island |
Although there were a few famous people buried there, we
ended up just wandering around and checking out some of the churches on the beautiful
grounds. Eventually, we went back to the waterbus stop and went over to Murano.
Murano, in case you don’t know, is an island
that is famous for it’s glassmakers. However, once we reached the island, we
learned that this basically only manifested through shops. There apparently was
a glass museum somewhere and I ended up finding a giant glass statue, but
otherwise it looked like the island ‘s main attraction was shopping. This
wasn’t bad though, and Nick and I enjoyed going into all of the stores. He
ended up buying some gifts for his girlfriend and his mother, and I ended up
getting some gifts for friends (again, not telling!) and a beautiful glass
ladybug at a really tiny shop where a man was molding glass in the store.
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| On Murano |
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| Murano |
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| Murano |
Eventually, we began bumping into other
people in the group, and then it was time to take the waterbus to class. Nick,
Arthur, and I ended up quickly stopping in a very fast food pizza place (which
also, amusingly enough, had a guy blowing glass in the shop next door) and then
grabbing gelato before we got on the waterbus. From there, the bus took us
completely around the main island of Venice and down to Giudecca, where we
would have class.
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| View from the waterbus |
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| View from the waterbus |
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| Giudecca |
We met Gianni and Claudia at the waterbus station, and they
took us to a really nice dance studio to have class in for three hours. In
class, we did partner improv with Claudia (mostly using body parts to lead
someone around), a god and creation exercise with Gianni (which the dancers had
done before), some tarantella with Gianni, and an exercise where we created
improv pieces based around paintings given to us.
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| The studio where we had class |
Once we were done, we headed back to the top
of the Grand Canal. I was interested in seeing the Jewish Ghetto, some others
were interested in exploring, and another group was interested in going to Chabad.
So a rather large group ended up getting off at that stop. I stuck with the non-Chabad
group planning to just wander, but I really wanted to find a synagogue before
we left. Unfortunately, most of the non-Chabad group just wanted to wander in
general so I ended up leaving them and attempting to join up with the Chabad
group. To my bad luck, they were already gone, so I wandered back through the
piazza and streets of the ghetto. Luckily, I then found a group of Jewish
American tourists (clearly all from one temple) who were leaving a synagogue
after Friday night services. By listening in on their conversations, I was able
to locate the two main temples in the area (I even tried to go in one, but
access was denied), and I left feeling much better.
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| Entrance to the Ghetto |
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| Synagogue in the Ghetto |
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| The piazza in the Ghetto |
While walking back towards the hotel, I
bumped into the non-Chabad group and, after a short snack for some of the
group, we took the waterbus down the Grand Canal to the Rialto. We then walked
back to the hostel (where I took a shower) and then Arthur, Nick, Mimi, and I
headed out to dinner together. We mostly wandered without direction and
eventually found a really nice restaurant down some twisty backstreets. The
prices ended up being really good, the portions big, and the food tasty so we
ended up spending a few hours there and basically left after the restaurant
closed. Heading back to the hostel proved to be slightly difficult since we had
ignored directions while looking for a restaurant, and, after heading in what
we thought was the right direction, we actually ended up in Piazza San Marco!
However, from there it was easy to find the hostel and we got back with no more
problems.
The next day was my last day in Venice, so I
got up early to have the most time to explore. After eating breakfast and
making plans to later meet Nick at Piazza San Marco, I headed out alone to find
some of the shops on my list. And, for the first time in Venice, I had quite a
bit of luck finding things and not getting lost. From the Rialto, I was able to
find not only two shops on my list, but two cool mask shops, and the purse shop
I had seen before (and never thought I’d see again) that had right color flower
purse that I wanted (there were these flower purses all over Venice, but none
of the colors appealed to me except the one in this shop). Soon after, Nick called me, but I
wasn’t fast enough to pick it up, and he forgot that I couldn’t call anyone
back at that time. I assumed he was headed to the piazza so I headed in that
direction. This proved a little trickier than expected, but I eventually
reached the piazza without any backtracking. Luckily, when I reached the
piazza, Nick was there too, and we chatted and took pictures while waiting for
Mimi to meet up with us.
Eventually, she called to tell us that she
would just meet us in the church, so we went in. And it was amazing! The
mosaics and gold tiles covering the ceiling were absolutely incredible, and I’m
really surprised that I did not get a crick in my neck from staring up so much!
Nick and I ended up seeing a lot of other Accademia students while walking
through the church, and, by the time we did the full circuit, Mimi had arrived
and we did it again. (Not that I was complaining.)
After Mimi had a chance to look around (and I
took some covert pictures—there was a sign saying no photos, but everyone in
the church was taking photos and not getting yelled at so I thought, “Why
not?”), we left the church and decided to stop back at some of the previous
shops I found before going to lunch.
We quickly found the hat shop (which was now
open, but turned out to be very boring), but the favorites for Mimi and Nick
were the mask shops I found. The first had your standard variety of well-made
but not ridiculously expensive masks and we all took their card before leaving.
The second had some typical masks too, but they also had a ton of amazing
animal masks. While Mimi debated getting a cat mask there, Nick headed back to
the first mask shop to buy one for his girlfriend. Eventually, Mimi bought the
mask and we went to go find Nick and get lunch. Unfortunately, we got
completely lost and had to back track a few times before we finally found the
shop. We then all headed out to
lunch and then had gelato at a fancy gelateria near our hostel. From there, we
then headed across the Ponte Accademia to try and find the jewelry shop I had
gotten lost trying to find before.
Along the way, we made a surprise find. On
the other side of the Ponte Accademia, we found the mask shop that supplied the
masks for the Tom Cruise film, Eyes Wide Shut. Inside there were a ton of
amazing masks, but my attention was quickly captured by the hats in the shop.
All of them had bases of top hats or three-cornered hats and feathers and lace
galore, and I was completely enraptured by them all. I’m pretty sure I ended up
trying every hat in the shop, but I quickly fell in love with a red and black
hat that fit me perfectly. Of course it was hand made and expensive, but, after
a discount and talks about transporting the hat with the owner, I decided to
buy it. And I’m so happy I did.
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| The mask shop |
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| The mask shop |
From there, we all combined our powers of
navigation with my map, but were unable to locate the jewelry shop. We
eventually reached an unnamed piazza and happily decided to give up. Amusingly,
as we turned around, it turned out that the shop was right there and that the
unnamed piazza was the piazza we had been looking for. Unfortunately, the shop
was closed, but the jewelry ended up being really ugly, so no loss there.
We then headed back to San Marco where we
took some time to just sit by the beautiful water and chat.
Eventually, it was getting to be close to the
time of the train we wanted to catch, so we headed back to the hostel to get
our bags. However, we (coughNickcoughcough) sort of misjudged the distance
between the hotel and the train station, so we ended up walking fast/running to
reach the station in time. Even though we nearly lost Mimi twice (the first
time in a crowd when she dropped something and a nice stranger retrieved it for
her and the second time when she nearly missed getting on the train attempting
to validate her ticket), we all made it on the train we wanted. (Mimi ended up
validating her ticket at the next stop by quickly jumping off and then back on
again once it was stamped). The train then took us from Venice to Bologna
(where Nick and I grabbed a quick McDonald’s for dinner in the 20 minutes we
had before we switched trains) and then from Bologna to Arezzo. Due to the late
hour, Nick, Mimi, the other Accademia students who had taken that train, and I
took a cab back to the villa.
And that was our wonderful trip to Venice!
Ciao!
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