To Italy and Back- Venice

Greetings! Or as the Italians would say, CIAO! My trip was a trip of a lifetime! The things I got to see and do kept me in awe all week long. I'm so excited to finally get to write and tell everyone about it. Warning though- a week in Italy will probably require several long blogs! So prepare yourself. I want to thank everyone for their prayers because I could definitely tell they were with us!

Thursday, February 26

I actually started off my travel day with a midterm test in my Winston Churchill class. I spent the previous day in the library preparing myself and think it paid off. Once the stress of that test was over, the stress of traveling began. I got home and packed immediately, made sure to charge my camera, and hoped I didn't leave anything behind! There were 5 of us traveling that day. We met up at the bus stop and headed to the airport. The airport was very crowded. It must have been a popular day to travel. We got our boarding passes and through security with relatively no problems. The next stop VENICE! We arrived at the Venice airport pretty late and got a bus to the city. Once inside the city, I was blown away. It was dark, but everything was still BEAUTIFUL. It was everything I expected it to be and more. We took a water bus from the bus station to the stop where our hostel was suppose to be. One of the cool things about Venice is that inside the city there are no cars. Instead of having buses for public transport, they have water buses, which are just boats on the water that take people from stop to stop. It was so cool. The girls and I are trying to take pictures of everything, but of course they weren't coming out because it was pitch black, but it was so beautiful that we had to try. The water bus dropped us off at our stop, and we walked to our stop. Three girls had gotten there the day before and already reserved us a hostel. We walk up to our hostel and buzz, and no one answers. We start to get a little nervous, but continue to buzz with hopes that someone would answer the door. No one does. We all begin to look at each other worried, and then immediately start thinking about a plan B. As we are pondering, the nicest old Italian man walks by with his dog and asks us if we need help in very broken English. He tried to call our hostel and other hostel numbers we had, and then he told us to buzz our hostel one more time. We did and someone finally answered! The desk is 24 hours, but the guy working it had fallen asleep and finally woke up to the buzz. We were so grateful! We went straight to our rooms and crashed for the night. Tomorrow was going to be our first day in Venice and I almost couldn't sleep b/c I was so excited!

Friday, February 27

I woke up Friday morning a little tired from the day before, but once I remembered where I was, I jumped and looked out my window to a beautiful view of Venice! I mean we could see the city or anything, but it was a beautiful ally way! We got up and went down for complimentary breakfast, which I soon learned that all Italians eat a croissant and coffee. The croissant was amazing though! I really enjoyed my breakfast, well actually all my food in Italy. A much better change from London food. The morning began with finding a map and figuring out where we wanted to go. There aren't that many tourist attractions in Venice, but just walking along the streets and canals is way better than tourist things. We walked to a church (I know its terrible, but I can't remember its name. There have been many churches in the last two months). As usual, the church was gorgeous inside and out. The effort that went into making those churches is amazing. After that church,, we finally made it to our destination, Piazza San Marco(1). This Piazza has a ton of pigeons in it and people feed them to try and get them to sit on their arms or head. Its quite gross and needless to say I didn't participate in that. Although a girl in our group did, it didn't last long. Also in that area there is Basilica di San Marco. It is an amazing church. We walked all the way through and went up on the balcony to take pictures of view. The church inside had intricate mosaics. I have never seen so many mosaics in one church. The whole ceiling is covered in them! The light reflects and makes the church sparkle. We spent a large amount of time in the church and on the roof top. After the church, we walked along the water and tried to find some lunch. Real Italian food! I was stoked to say the least. We actually ended up walking around and doing a Gondola ride. There were five of us that day, and we all split the price. It was great. We rode around for about thirty minutes and got to see the city from a different angle. Not to mention it was so peaceful! I would say romantic, but I was in there with five girls. That wasn't necessarily the case for us, but any couple out there I am telling you now to GO TO VENICE! Its amazing and soooo worth it! So go ahead and mark your calendars for a trip.

After the ride, FOOD! We found a place near our hostel that was a good price and got to sit outside. The weather was that day was perfect. The sunshine and no rain was a great change! I ordered spaghetti and meat sauce, my favorite! I thought that would an appropriate first meal in Italy. It was so good!

We spent the entire day walking along the canals and roads. It doesn't sound like we did much, but we also had to figure out our hostel situation for that night because we had to switch to a sister hostel from the one from the night before. Regardless of that, we still got to see some of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen! I just kept pinching myself because it didn't seem real. I was really in Italy!

Saturday, February 28

We woke up in time for breakfast and checked out of our hostel. That hostel we stayed in was very nice! We had a balcony and bidet! We only used one of the two. The hostel we stayed in let us leave our luggage there so we could continue to explore Venice one more day before we left for Florence. We went to the Rialto Market. It was a lot of souvenir and tourist stuff. Of course, we all stocked up. There glass items there were so beautiful. We stayed at the market for a while then walked up and down one of the canals and sat along the edge. It was so awesome. The locals will bring their lunch and sit and eat. Its so beautiful I could have sat there all day. Not to mention how entertaining the birds are! Once our time was up in Venice, we headed back to the hostel to get our bags and made our way to the train station. Not without some drama though. Another girl and myself had a wheel break off our luggage. It was a very long walk to the train station, needless to say, we both struggled with our bags. We got to the train station and got on our train to Florence.


More to come later...






1. Piazza San Marco is Venice's most famous piazza. What appears to be a rectangle is actually a trapezium, and when you look up at the basilica, the piazza seems enormous, although it is only 175 meters long. On both sides of the piazza are the Procuratie, which housed the procurators of San Marco. The centerpiece of the piazza is the Basilica di San Marco The oldest of these (probably built by Codussi) are on your left when you face the basilica; Longhena built the ones on the right later, in 1640. The most recent buildings, commissioned by Napoleon in 1810, lie behind.

2. Started in the 9th Century, this church's architecture shows an eastern and Byzantine influence: note the golden altarpiece and the 13th and 14th-century mosaics that illustrate the cycles of the Bible. The magnificent domes date from the 12th Century. The Basilica houses the Marciano Museum, which contains the original bronze horses, copies of which are now on the terrace. Other great artworks are located in the Pala d'Oro , along with masterpieces of Gothic goldsmithing, located just behind the altar.