Venezia, Italia
| Posted on February 1, 2015 at 8:30 PM |
Open eyes, warm heart, and a free mind.
We arrived in Venice at 10:34 in the morning on Friday, January 30th. As soon as you leave the train station you are literally on water! It was as bright and beautiful, if not more, than I ever imagined. It all came to me as a huge maze for which I was eager to get lost in. As we started to walk, the streets seemed impossible to figure out and with no idea in what direction we were walking towards. We wandered around for a couple hours only to find out we had been walking in circles over and over again.
We walked towards the Grand Canal to get our water passes and head towards our hostel which was located in Giudecca, an island on the southside of Venice. The only way to get to our hostel was through the water taxi because the island is not connected to the "mainland". It came both as a convenience and a curse as we had to take a water taxi every time we wanted to go back on to the main piazza.
We chose the Generator hostel and I highly recommended to anyone who's traveling in Europe looking for an inexpensive and clean hostel. As my first time staying in a hostel I was very impressed! I was expecting the absolute worse, but Generator definitely surpassed all expectations. The best part was the "college" vibe in the environment. We stayed in a sixteen mixed bedroom. We arrived so early that for a while it was only the eight of us in the group. That same night the other group of college students, which were studying in Florence, joined us. Unfortunately that same day, after we arrived at the hostel, we all sort of took a nap which turned into a couple hours. We ended up just hanging out at the bar and lounge the hostel had near the lobby.
Early in the morning, we started off our day with breakfast at the hostel then off to St.Mark's Square! As soon as we got to St. Mark's Square, we looked for the line to the Basilica which was surprisingly not as bad as we were expecting to wait. Once we were inside it took me a good minute to take in everything that was around me. The sun reflecting upon the gold ceilings and walls composed by frescos was astonishing. As I keep discovering Italy, more and more beauty keeps unfolding in front of me. St.Mark's Basilica is truly a masterpiece as it was meant to be to show off to the world, it definitely follows its reputation. We walked around the church for a good hour and somehow lost part of our group.
Caleb, David, and I decided to go on towards the Doge's Palace. I found myself speechless after the tour of the Palace. As we kept walking room after room, it kept getting more and more overwhelming with the masterpieces of art and architecture. How it was possible to have such grand art at one location? It took about two hours just to tour the Doge's Palace. The final room, which was the ballroom, was absolutely phenomal! Filled with many art pieces and gold surrounding each one I could imagine royalty gracefully dancing through the same floors I was standing on. Looking through each painting and frescos definitely gave it more meaning as each one told a different story.
Towards the end of the Doge's Palace tour, we got to stand on the Bridge of Sighs. Probably one of my favorite views in Venice as you have the perfect picture of St. Mark's square and the people in the city. The bridge is known as the "Bridge of Sighs" because it was where prisoners got the last view of Venice before entering the dungeons which death would follow. The prisioners would sigh while looking out the bridge, leaving the beautiful picture perfect view of Venice as a last impression.
After the Doge's Palace, we decided to grab some food as we were starving and overwhelmed by, literally, too much beauty. Our professor, Szymon, had recommended a coffee shop which was located in one of the museums on the opposite side of St.Mark's Basilica. We were lucky enough to sit by the window and enjoyed a perfect view of St. Mark's Square while eating delicious sandwhiches. Eventually, we met up with the rest of our group and decided to go back to the hostel to take a nap to go out later in the evening.
Sunday morning in Venice was my absolute favorite day! David decided to join me in going to mass at St.Mark's Basilica even though he isn't catholic but was interested in experiencing mass for the first time. The service was in Italian, but regardless the traditions were represented. I loved the fact that no matter where and in what language Catholicism is practiced, generally, the same way as I knew exactly what was going on and what to do. After mass, David and I reunited with our group for breakfast then walked around in town a little more before heading back to Verona.
All in all, going to Venice for the first weekend since we arrived was definitely a learning experience for future weekend travels. We, somewhat, wasted a lot of time but where else to waste time then beautiful Venice, right? Venice left me with a feeling of love and happiness thanks to its acqua blue waters, colorful gondolas, and three foot streets!
"There is a veiled softness about Venice... you look at the horizon and there is a lace curtain across the window to its soul"
- Lisa Fantino
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