Italy Group Tour: Venice

Venice: Part 1 of 2 : 18-19 October 2016

At the Milan Train station late at night after arriving on our flight from Zaragoza, Spain. Our bed and breakfast was a 10 minute walk from the train station and that's where we went to get a few hours sleep before having to catch the 7:30 AM train from Milan to Venice.

We arrived in Venice about twenty minutes after the rest of the Study Abroad students who were on an overnight train from Vienna. They were already long gone from the train station and we had to find our way to the hotel on our own. Our phones didn't have data, so we couldn't use Google Maps to get us there. We just had screenshots. Venice isn't very big, but it is very easy to get lost and turned around! This nice Italian guy helped us out. We were on the wrong island. That's not saying much though, because Venice is composed of 118 seperate islands connected by about 400 footbridges.

In the end, it was Carli who found our way to where we needed to be!

After dropping off our bags, it was off to explore!

We spent most of the first day there with Will and Mariah Allen, and got lost numerous times. We hit a dead end right onto the main canal and tried to Hail a water taxi. Lucky he couldn't come up to us there, because we found out later that water taxis there are ridiculously expensive. 

St. Mark's Square in Venice was a little bit flooded when we were there.

When the floods come, they set up these elevated walk ways all over the city for people to walk on. Or if you're Will, you can just cary your wife through the water like a champ.

Cindy Brewer being adventurous with the pigeons. 

You can't go to Venice without going on a Gondola ride!

I'm pretty sure our guy's name was Stefano. He's been driving gondolas since he was 18 years old!

We woke up very early on day 2 in order to make it to St. Marks square for sunrise. We had to run there as waking up was hard, but we made it!

It was awesome to be up before all the crowds of tourists and before all the shops opened up. We really got to experience Venice for what it is and not for what people have turned it into. Our Gondola driver, Stefano, told us that Venice is not the same as it once was. It has been turned into Disneyland. By beating the crowds out the door, we were able to walk down streets without being haggled by shopkeepers, or restaurants.

Our hostel hat a complementary breakfast. We had to walk 10 minutes to a little cafe where they gave us a croissant and a glass of juice.

A lot of Venice is actually pretty run down. Repairs and renovations are incredibly expensive. Everything has to be brought in on barges. Just like this boom truck.

We went for lunch with the Allens. At one point during the trip, we sat down at a restaurant and just wanted pasta, or pizza. We didn't want anything to drink from the restaurant because it's expensive. The waiter refused to serve us if we didn't get something to drink. "No drink service.. no food service." So we got up and left.

On day 2 in Venice, we took a boat ride out to the island of Murano. Murano is famous for their glass production. When the palace of Versailles (France) was built, they bought all the mirrors for the palace from Murano because they knew the secrets to mirror making. The mirrors were a display of great wealth and power.
This little church here was on a little island that is used as the cemetery. The church is often completely flooded. 

The tour guide said that bridge back there was famous...

Carli kept begging me for a selfie stick, but I can't bring myself to be the owner of a selfie stick... Even if we did get a cool picture on the gondola with our friend's.

There are artists all over Europe that sell their art on the street. Some of them are fake, selling prints. Some of them, however, are real! Like this painting we got from a lady on the grand canal in Venice.

In the evening on day two, we left Venice and got on a train to Florence.