Our Visit to Venezia

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Our second weekend here in Italy, we took our first big trip away from Florence...to Venezia (that’s Venice in Italian). We were pretty nervous because there happened to be a train strike the day we wanted to leave! However, we got lucky and found a train that was still going to Venice, leaving bright and early at 8 in the morning. It worked out well because we had a full day to spend in Venice.

We arrived in Venice around 11 and the first sight we saw coming out of the train station was the grand canal – it was so amazing! Our destinations on day 1 were the islands of Murano, where they make the famous Venetian Glass, and Burano, where they make lace and more importantly (to us) have fabulous rainbow colored houses!

We had to walk to the ferry stop for Murano which was inconveniently very far from the train station – and the tough thing about navigating Venice is that there are all the canals, but only a few points where you can cross them, so it can seem like you are taking a very roundabout way to reach places if you walk there.

We ate lunch at a little café near the dock and then got on the ferry for Murano. On Murano we went to a glass factory where we saw them blowing glass and somehow got in for free even though you were supposed to pay – we got lucky I guess! It was neat, but the glass at that factory was too expensive to buy (forget about factory-direct prices there!). We walked a little way away from the dock, where we found less expensive shops and stocked up on some neat Venetian glass items, such as glass pens and a wine stopper.

From Murano we caught a ferry to Burano. It was a beautiful little island that was really untouched by tourism – its pretty far from Venice so not a lot of tourists make it over there. It was really neat to be on this tiny Italian island and see the locals going about their daily life. The most beautiful part was the houses. They were painted all sorts of bright colors – hot pink, bright blue, purple, orange – it was so gorgeous! We just walked around taking in the sights of this beautiful little island, and then took the ferry back a bit later to go to Venice and our hostel.

Our hostel was on the mainland and was called Camping Fusina – one of the many popular and inexpensive “camping hostels” in Italy. It wasn’t actually camping – our room was a private trailer with a community bathroom and showers. Like a campsite, but a lot nicer, very clean, and only 15 euros a night per person! The ferry ran straight from mainland Venice to our campsite. The first night, we grabbed dinner at our hostel’s restaurant. I tried gnocchi (potato pasta shells) and meat sauce, and Drew had spaghetti and meat sauce, and we both had salads – it was delicious!

The next day, we took the bus over to Venice because it was 1) much cheaper and 2) stopped at the Venezia Mestre train station (mainland station). We got off there and bought tickets to go back to Florence the next day, and then caught the bus into the city. We went to the train station, where some friends of ours – Shaun, Christine and Tatum- met us. They were visiting Venice for the day.

Our first stop on day 2 was St Mark’s Square, where we were really touristy and fed the pigeons. It was so worth it though, it was a lot of fun! At first I was terrified to have birds landing on me, but I conquered my fears and fed them a few times, and really enjoyed it! The best was Tatum, though, because she has a fear of birds but decided to try it anyway. We got some really great pictures with her looking away in disgust as the bird lands on her hand!

After St Mark’s square, we went to the Doge’s palace, the Ducal Palace where the rulers of Venice lived. It was amazing! The place was absolutely gigantic and very ornate in its decoration. There was a grand staircase with gold decoration all over the ceiling, and every room was covered in artwork and very fancy decorations, such as Venetian glass chandeliers. After going through the rooms of the palace, we walked over the famous Bridge of Sighs into the prison ...apparently, this Bridge is called the Bridge of Sighs because as the prisoners walked over, the looked out the window and sighed, because after crossing the bridge they were stuck in the prison forever. The prison was neat too, though very different from the palace – there was really old graffiti that prisoners had written on the walls of their cells, and that was pretty neat. After passing through the prison we went back over the Bridge of Sighs and into the former armory, where they had display after display of all the fantastic old weapons. Some of them looked pretty intense!

After the Doge’s Palace we checked out a bit more of the city, riding the ferry around to get a good look at everything and then shopping in the area around the train station. We bought a really pretty Venetian glass angel ornament. Then, Tatum, Shaun and Christine had to leave, and after Drew and I did more shopping ( I had to find a Venetian mask!) and got dinner at a really nice little restaurant.

Our trip in Venice would not have been complete without a Gondola ride, of course!

After dinner we walked over to the Rialto bridge (where my trusty travel book had ensured me I would find the best Gondola routes). We found our gondolier and hopped into the very fancy gondola. He rowed us under the famous and beautiful Rialto bridge, and then we went into the small side canals that were very scenic and pretty much deserted, making for a very calm and private gondola ride. To be even more classy on our Gondola ride, we bought some prosecco (Italian champagne) to drink along the ride.

After the ride we went and sat near the Rialto bridge to finish the rest of our champagne.

Then it was back to the hostel for the night!

The next morning, we left for Florence around 11 and got home in the afternoon. We rested in the afternoon and then went out to enjoy a very special celebration in Florence – the feast day of San Giovanni, the patron saint here. We got together with our friends and walked down to the river, bringing along a bottle of wine. We grabbed some great spots on the wall next to the river and sat down and relaxed for a while. Then, once it got dark, they turned out all the lights along the river...and a huge fireworks display began! It was gorgeous!

So, even though we didn’t get any fireworks for the 4^th of July, we at least got to see some fireworks this summer! What a fun weekend!