Molto Bene!: Venezia- My Future Home?

Last Thursday, we didn’t have class, because my professor had to go to a conference in Paris (don’t worry though, we made it up today). A few other students and I decided to go to Venice. We woke up early and were on the train before our class would’ve started. The train arrived in the Venezia Santa Lucia train station a little after 10, so we had the whole day to explore the city. My first reaction after we left the train station was, “I love Venice!” The station is right on the Grand Canal, so you don’t have to walk very far at all to start seeing the beauty of the city. After gaping at the fact that we were indeed in Venice for a few minutes, we got our bearings and set out for Piazza San Marco.

Instead of getting there the easy, or quick, way, we explored random side streets, stumbled upon many different piazze, and saw a ton of little shops. What better way to explore a city? It was fantastic to see and take pictures of. In fact, I took so many that I’m basically uploading two different sets, so don’t assume you’ve seen them all! The canals were charming and I think I have about a million pictures of them.

The shops were also amazing, especially all of the masks that they try to sell to tourists (yes, I did buy one, but how could I not?). It would be impossible to count all the masks, which they use for Carneval, yet they’re almost all different. Of course there are different qualities and sizes, but I think I spent a good chunk of time just looking at them.

After about two hours of exploring, we finally hit the tourist stretch down to the main piazza. It was a little stressful to go from empty residential streets to packed, commercialized tourist streets. We made it down to the piazza, and it did not disappoint. It was huge! Not to mention beautiful. We walked around, took a bunch of pictures, and finally went into the Basilica. That in itself was stunning, unfortunately pictures were not allowed, so perhaps you’ll just have to Google what the inside looks like.

After all that, it was time to meander our way back to the train station. Again, we got away from the tourist routes and got to see a little bit more of the city. Venice is a fantastic city. I loved all the water, gondolas, and masks. I am definitely glad I went, and I’ll probably end up there again someday. Definitely highly recommended in my book.