Italia - Venezia

Italy - Part I

I've told you about my day of travel, now let me tell you about the rest. But I'll say again, that the story is really in the pictures so check my facebook album and as soon as I restore my pictures in some reasonable order I'll start to put them on flickr and you can see even more there.

Friday February 25 - Venice!

Venice is a dream. I spent the morning walking around the island taking everything in. The little winding streets lead you to more little winding streets, which leads you to beautiful canal after beautiful canal. I am pretty certain that the entire city was built like a maze so you just wander around and you only ever have a rough estimation of where you are. It is lovely. I was lucky too because I've heard it is more or less the rainy season in N.Italy and I had lovely sunshine the entire time I was in Venice. Albeit the wind was chilly the warm sun was a treat. Eventually, when I got hungry I ducked onto a side street, to avoid the expensive cafes, and bought a calzone. This consisted of ham, cheese, and mushrooms wrapped in warm pizza bread.

Naturally lunch was followed by gelato because you can't be in Italy and not eat gelato. It just isn't right. This was followed by a coffee while I sat in a park waiting for my 2pm boat tour to three other islands in the surrounding area.

At 2pm I boarded the boat and sailed away to Murano, known for its glass blowing. We received a demonstration and were allowed to tour their warehouse where you could buy their glass products. There were so many beautiful sculptures, vases, and everything else you could think of. Sadly our time on Murano didn't last long. I was hoping to be able to look at a few different shops for glassware but we had to leave rather quickly.

Our next stop was the island of Torcello. It is more or less abandoned now, with only about 80 residents remaining. The island was abandoned due to a Malaria outbreak in the past. There were some old churches and houses. It was a nice and quiet stop.

Our last stop on the tour was Burano, known for its lace making and colourfully painted homes. It was an adorable island. It came at the end of the day when the sun was going down and I was quite tired of walking around. I'd been out of the house for near 7 hours at this time. It was quite a cute place but my heart wasn't in it.

The boat brought us back to the main square San Marco in Venice and I trudged back to the hostel. Along the way I stopped in a few shops and purchased a letter opener with a glass handle. It was totally by luck that I walked by the place and saw it. I'd seen quite a few but most of them were quite tacky and cheap looking. Not this one, it is gorgeous and done by a local man.

I made it back to the hostel in time for another delicious 4€ meal. I was lucky because I was really hungry and there were only a few of us for dinner that night so I ate a lot. I'm talking 3+ plates of pasta. Ha. The owner ate just as much as I did so I didn't feel bad that I ate much more than 4€ worth.

Carnival was starting in Venice the next day (?) or I think some little things had been going on before that but the main day was on Saturday. One of the girls at the hostel really wanted to go out with our masks on. Really she wanted to go out dancing. However, no one else really wanted to. A rather large group of us ended up walking to a bar and sitting down for a drink but it was cold and most of us were quite tired so we headed back to bed shortly after we arrived.

Saturday 26 - Venice to Milan

Saturday morning four of us from the hostel strapped on our masks and walked out into the frenzy that is Venice during Carnival. It was literally night and day from my previous day in Venice. Friday was pretty laid back and although there were lots of people it was still quite relaxed. Saturday was a whole other world, it was packed, everywhere. I'm pretty sure the amount of people on the island more than tripled from Friday night to Saturday morning. It was great though, there were tons of people in masks or costumes or had their faces painted. There is a fountain in San Marco plazza that had wine coming out of it that you could buy, it was packed. It was almost too much.

We stepped onto a little street to get lunch again. I had another calzone. Delicious. At this point it was almost 2pm and I decided to leave a little earlier so I could get into Milan in the daylight as my hotel was quite far from the Central Station. We walked back to the hostel, I grabbed my bag and ran to the train. I was sad to leave. Venice is beautiful and like no where else. It is quite touristy and even expensive but I think my favorite moment of the entire trip came when I was sitting in the sun at the edge of the Gande Canal watching the gondola boats float by. Such simple beauty.

Anyways, I went to catch a train - which turned into quite a debacle. The line was moving very slowly so I went to the machine to buy a ticket but ended up buying the wrong ticket for the train I wanted but in the time it took me to switch it the train had left. So I boarded the cheaper, slower train (3.5 hrs instead of 2.5), unfortunately the train system is different in Italy than it is in the Netherlands (here someone on the train validates it while you ride, there you must validate it before you get ton). So, I hadn't validated anything, this meant that I got a fine, and not a small fine. It was so frustrating. And then, because I was on the slower train I ended up getting there in the dark anyways. Lame.

It didn't really matter though because the hotel was actually quite easy to find. Well I think it was easy to find because I google streetviewed the whole way, ha. So it made a difference. My hotel was an hour by transit away from the Central Station. Very far. It actually wasn't even in Milan, it was in Corsico which is another city attached to Milan. I checked in, went for chinese food, and came back and went to bed.

In an attempt to not drag on I think I'll cover Milan and Verona tomorrow. I don't want to bore anyone ;)