Wishing I was still in Venice

As I mentioned in my post last Thursday, I went to Venice for the weekend with Ania and Allyson. We stayed there on Friday and Saturday night and returned to Florence on Sunday afternoon. It was a very relaxing trip, and we had beautiful sunny weather the whole weekend. Venice is one of the most unique and beautiful places I have ever seen in my life. To begin with, of course, the streets are canals, so this means that we did not see a car once we entered the city. There are boats instead of cars or trucks for everything--we saw a police boat, a mail boat, and garbage boat, bus boats, and taxi boats, not to mention many gondolas. The city is actually built on a series of islands, so if you walk to the periphery, you can see the sea. There were many tourists there this weekend, and it is easy to understand why. If you'd like to see some pictures, here is the link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025484&id=173301949&l=ab233. I will write a bit about each day to give you a better picture of my time there:

03/06/2009

Today I traveled to Venice with Ania and Allyson. We are going to stay here for two nights. I found a cheap one star hotel (75 euros per night) right in central Venice. We were a little bit worried about what we’d be getting, but it turned out to be great! It took us a long time to find our hotel because when you're walking on the streets rather than riding a boat you come to many dead ends. While we were walking, we paused on a bridge to look at a map and see where we were. This is when we saw a lone Asian woman going for a gondola ride. We were looking at her, wondering why she would go alone, and the gondola driver caught us looking. He yelled up to us, "You know Pokeman?" We said yes, then he pointed to the woman and said "Pikachu!" The woman had no idea what was going on, and we were just laughing so hard. His comment may have been a bit inappropriate, and it just makes me wonder what they say about us in Italian. After that little adventure and a quick stop for gelato, we finally found our hotel. When we entered the room the towels were folded like hearts on the beds! We had a small room with three beds that overlooked a canal. When I first opened the window there were some men outside unloading a boat, and they started calling to us and whistling. After we got settled in the room we walked around the city for a while. Venice just has such a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere. Aside from the sheer charm and beauty of the canals, people everywhere are friendly and happy, probably because they are on vacation. Today was just sort of our day to get adjusted to the city. We did some shopping at the many blown glass shops and markets then ended up sitting by the seaside for a while. Tomorrow we plan to go on a gondola ride and see the St. Mark’s Basilica. We saw St. Mark’s from the outside today, and I’m pretty excited to go in. St. Mark, the one who wrote the Gospel of Mark, is buried there, which to me is just amazing. Actually knowing where the bodies of the saints are just makes them seem so much more real. The gondola ride should be pretty sweet too…there are some pretty cute gondola drivers in their striped shirts and straw hats.

03/07/2009

Since today was our only full day in Venice, we had a lot to accomplish. I woke up early and read from a guide book that I had borrowed from Bob. I learned all about the city, and picked out the sites that are most important to see. Our first mission of the day was to tour St. Mark's Basilica. The basilica's construction began around 800 A.D., and, although it was sacked and rebuilt a couple times, it has still been around for almost 1,000 years! It is made in the Italo-Byzantine style, which basically means that it uses tons of gold, mosaics, and traditional iconography of the saints. The overall effect is just staggering! You walk in, and you are completely surrounded by gold! It is hard to know where to focus because the whole is just so magnificent. If you look closely at the mosaics, they tell stories of Christ and the Apostles. I also found out today that no one is really certain where St. Mark's body is. His tomb is under the main altar, but during the destruction of the church in it's early years, his remains were lost in the rubble. It is said that a prayer service for the recovery of St. Mark's remains was said during the early days of the new basilica. During this service, it is said that a cracking sound came from a pillar in the back of the church, and St. Mark's entire body came out of the pillar. Who knows, I guess anything is possible with miracles. After we were done touring the basilica we went to have a picnic in the Garden Reali. This is a place that I discovered from Bob's guide book, and I'm really glad I found it. It was a nice relaxing place to take in some greenery and be away from the masses of tourists. There were also these cute little nuthatches that ate bread crumbs out of our hands! After our picnic we went to see the Arsenale, which for many years was the largest harbor in the world. Then, after that, we went to the Piazza Margherita, which was highly recommended by the author of the guidebook. It was not all that he made it out to be, and it was a very long walk to get there. But we did get to see a lot of the city along the way. Oh well, live and learn. After that walk, we were all feeling pretty tired, so we went back to the hotel to rest up for the evening. In the evening we went for a gondola ride, which was amazing! It was quite expensive, but worth it. We went just at dusk, so the moon and stars were visible, but it was not quite dark yet. It was a really neat way to take in the city, and we enjoyed a bottle of wine along the way. Overall, I'd say this evening is an evening that I want to remember forever. Good friends, good wine, and a gondola ride in Venice, what more can a girl ask for?

03/07/2009

Today Ania and I went to Mass in the morning at a church near to our hotel. It was a very strange Mass that did not completely follow the parts of the Mass that I am used to, and there were only about 10 people there, all of them over 65. It was a huge church, but the Mass was held in a side chapel. There are 107 churches in Venice, so I guess they all can't be filled. Plus, during communion there was no choir, so the priest played a song from a tape recorder. Can you say tacky? We should have gone to one of the bigger churches, but oh well. If there's a next time, I'll know where not to go. Other than that, we did a little more shopping, had lunch, then headed back to the train station for our journey home. The train ride home was a bit interesting, as there was an Italian man, probably about 30 years old, across the aisle from me who stared at me for about two hours straight. I was reading a book, and every time I looked up, his eyes were just locked on mine. Finally, I wrote a note to Allyson that said I was going to get up to go to the bathroom, then move into the seat next to her, which faced away from the man. When I got up to go to the bathroom, he turned completely to stare at me as I walked down the train aisle. So creepy! I hate it when this kind of thing happens on a train or bus and I can't get away from the person. At first it was funny, but now it's just getting annoying. I think I'm going to figure out how to say in Italian, "Take a picture, it will last longer!"