Our trip to Venice was absolutely spectacular! It started with a far too early morning. The bus left at 7:30 and we had to have eaten breakfast and packed a lunch prior to departure. The ride was going to be about three hours long and I was so excited at the beginning of the ride! Immediately we drove into the foothills surrounding Sesto Fiorentino and then into the Apennine mountains. The scenery was amazing the entire way. I, amazingly, wasn't too tired so I chose to read my book--I'm rereading Pride and Prejudice because I love that book. But, driving through the mountain range made that a difficult task...too many tunnels! I finally gave up reading and took a little nap. It's Italian law for tour busses to stop on the outside of town to register with the Police (oh, Italians!). It was probably one of the ugliest places in all of Venice. But, it was just the place to register. Ten minutes later we pulled into the tourist's haven...buses, taxis, boats, tourists, tourists, and more tourists. 7 million people visit Venice per year and over 200,000 per day. Most stay fewer than 24 hours.
Anyway we met our architecture students (they were already on a trip for a few days and met us in Venice). Then, we boarded our private boat. The boat gave us a little tour of Venice, although we couldn't go down the grand canal as private boats aren't allowed there. We stopped at Murano...the glass blowing capital of the world (I don't actually know if that is its official title, but it sounds cool!). We had a little 5 minute glass blowing demonstration. It blew my mind...no pun intended! First he made a vase/bottle in two minutes. Then, a glass horse in under three minutes. He was just rolling the metal rod with molten glass on it and all of the sudden a horse head appeared. I can't even explain it...it was that cool! We then got to shop around the island for a while. The glass blowing used to take place on the main part of Venice, but as you may be able to imagine glass blowing is quite a fire hazard. And fire hazards on a group of 118 islands whose houses are mostly made of wood because wood is flexible and the materials have to be flexible because the city is sinking is not a good idea. (That was probably a very ungrammatical sentence!)
We got back on the boat and some of the grad students were complaining about how expensive it probably was to charter a boat to take us to the 5 minute glass blowing demonstration and shop for an hour, and they thought the demonstration wasn't even that great. But, at least for my roommate Amanda and me, it was one of the coolest things we've ever seen...and totally worth it! We didn't let them rain on our parade.
Anyway, the boat took us to a different dock on the main part of Venice that was quite close to our hotel...only one bridge away! :) We checked into our hotel room and freshened up. I stayed in a room with my roommate Amanda, and two girls named Laura and Yunha. I know Laura pretty well and didn't know Yunha very much, so that was fun. The whole group then gathered and walked to Piazzo San Marco (St. Mark's Square), the spot where all the main tourist attractions of Venice can be found. We had a date with two Venetian tour guides who gave us a tour of the Doge's Palace. (In my Italian Encounters class we had talked about Venice quite a bit and read articles about Piazza San Marco, so I really felt like I knew about the city and what things were...it was great!) Anyway, the Doge's Palace is the Palace where the Doge used to live, when they had a Doge. Also, a Doge was the ruler (like a Duke, I guess). It was interesting and we learned a lot about the history of Venice; I'll spare you the details.
After the two hour tour we had time to ourselves and needed to meet back at the Piazza San Marco at 7:30. During free time we got gelato, saw Ponte Rialto (one of three bridges, I think the oldest, crossing the Grand Canal that is filled with tourist shops), ran into a museum for a bit and did a lot of walking and exploring.
At 7:30 we hit one of two of my favorite parts of the trip. A private showing of la basilica di San Marco (St. Mark's Basilica!). A walk through of the church is something that every tourist does when he visits Venice. However, the building closes earlier than 7:30 and was opened just for the 40 of us; they bolted the door behind us! When we walked in, we stood in the entryway and got a brief history of the place by Professor Mariotti. (I don't know who this woman is that she has the power to get us a private showing of San Marco...but she rocks!) Then, we walked into the church which was pitch black and sat down. After we were all seated the lights start slowly coming on and lighting up different parts of the Basilica until finally all of the lights are on. It was quite an experience and one that, I'm sure, I will never have again. She told us all about the paintings and altars and everything! Then, the security guard turned around the altar for us to reveal the golden altar. This is the altar they use only for special holy days and, in the words of Professor Mariotti, probably the most grand and expensive piece of work we will see. It was all gold with gems added all over it. It is also turned around by a hand crank that has been in the church forever. Also, under the altar lies the remains of St. Mark the Evangelist. The condensed story is that two Venetian merchants stole St. Mark's remains from Alexandria in 828 and brought him back to Venice where he became the cities new patron saint. (St. Theodore got knocked out of that spot, poor guy!) We also saw the crypt where St. Mark used to be kept and many important bishops and cardinals are now buried. There's a lot more very interesting history that we learned, but I'll spare you the details and let you look it up if you are interested...or ask me!
Anyway, the tour ended and we were on our own. A group of seven of us--I'll name drop here because I know mom likes hearing the names of my friends!:)--Amanda Villa (not my roommate), Julian, Sam, Nishant, Alex, Kristine (my roommate) and me, went out to dinner at a cute little Italian restaurant. I had some good pasta with, get this Emma, crushed red peppers!
We bought some wine and were going to head back to the hotel to hang out for the night. I was navigating and asked if we wanted to take the short way or long way home and no one said anything until Alex said, the long way. Well, it was quite long. Two hours later and many wrong turns we made it. None of us minded the tour of Venice, except Nishant was getting a little angry! oops. I had no problem reading the map of Venice and figuring out where we were. My problem came when I realized I had no clue which direction we were facing...and street signs seem to be a rare commodity. Either there will be one street sign or just the name of the campo (square, piazza). So, my strategy was to figure out where we were, walk for a while then check the map and see if we made any progress. I thought it was working fine, other people disagreed. Anyway, Venice was beautiful at night, of course, and we had a good time.
When we got back to Hotel alla Salute everyone was too tire to hang out and drink wine so the other six went to bed. My hotel-mates Laura and Amanda were relaxing in the lobby so I sat by them for a while. We witnessed some angry Germans yell at the hotel staff...it was funny...there was also a towel fiasco. Our room, which had a bathroom in the hallway that was shared with other hotel rooms, didn't have any towels in it. I asked around and everyone else had towels so I asked the front desk for towels. He asked if we had a private bathroom and I said there was one right around the corner from our room. He said we don't get towels then...and refused to give them to me! :( Anyway, most of our friends were sleeping or didn't have extra towels....I'll continue this story in the next post...mostly because it's supper time! YUMMY! A presto!
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