Venice for my First Weekend

Visiting Venice for a second time just solidified that it is my favorite city in Italy. Our hotel's location was great and thanks my mommy's directions, we were able to find it rather readily, which is very surprising for the area with the miniature streets and strange alleyways. As my mom says, I kind of took on the roll of "tour guide" since I was the one out of the three of us (now three Georgetown girls- my friend from home, and my housemate in Fiesole).

FRIDAY

Friday, we hopped on the train and arrived safely in Venice. From there we took the vaporetta to the Rialto stop and found the hotel. We dropped off our luggae and went directly to St. Mark's Square. We stood in the piazza for a while admiring the beauty of St. Mark's. Barely was there. Again, we got so lucky with our timing and the lack of tourists. The weather was freezing, but it didn't rain. The first thing we did was see the Doges Palace. It was fun remembering times from when I was there before and commenting to the girls what we saw at the time and family moments. We walked across the Bridge of Sighs into the dungeons and prisons. I claimed every throne we saw in the State Departments and when Catie would say "what about me? Don't I get one" my comment "you can sit on my lap." So together we're going to rule Venice. We also claimed different rooms, ceilings, and banisters as our "own" which was funny. The ceilings were all a complete work of art in and of themselves. Then add the actual paintings on the walls and the palace is definitely that- a palace.

Next we walked over to St. Mark's Cathedral and its as beautiful as I remember. The gold mosaics all over the walls and ceilings still absolutely shock me. How many man hours and how much effort and how much money did all that take? Not to mention the incredibleness of how Venice was built, which even now they can't really figure out with all of our technology. Thats why it is also so sad that its sinking, or that the ocean levels are rising. We went to the top of St. Mark's and looked at the view. The view was great of the columns protecting Venice and of San Paolo across the way. From here we strolled along their version of "Rodeo Drive" and looked at all the stores, which the girls got a kick out of. We met up with two other girls for dinner. Finding a place to eat we passed by our old hotel and where we had Christmas Eve dinner. I found a painting on the way back to our hotel that I loved, so I bought it from a street vendor.

SATURDAY

The next day we decided to the Island of Murano. We were immediatley into a factory where they were performing. We saw the presentation where a vase and horse, which I still enjoyed for the second time. It just continues my appreciation for the glass. Catie finally had an "aha!" moment, where she understood why we love Murano so much as a family. We went to one of their show rooms at the front of the factory from there. Catie immediately fell in love with these water and wine glasses. She went for the water glasses. And from their, Marco, the salesmen, realized at least Catie and meant business. From their they us VIP treatment, along with all the other girls we were with. So they let us in a special showroom in the back that would have cost 10 euro to get in otherwise. So I spent a while looking around because that was the glass that I really like. Typical of being my mother's daughter, I chose a vase-type basket piece that was in blue. As soon as Marco, he looks at me, kind of gives this smirk, and says "do you realize that you just chose the proportionately most expensive piece we have here." (which I did for my previously purchased pink vase). At that time I was curiuos as to the cost, so I asked anyway, ending up with an answer of almost 600 euro. It wasn't so overwhelmingly stunning that I felt I needed to spend that much. So i kept looking. After a while, I looked at a section I had kind of overlooked because it was the red, and that wasn't, i don't think, originally my top choice. I immediately saw a piece I wasn't exactly sure of what it was. But I asked and he said it was a candie dish. so he pulled it out and i started looking closely at it. it was beautiful but was also cute at the same time. Ended up nogitating for 2 100 euro off the original prices. SO ended up with 2 red and 24 carat gold candy dishes. we walked around murano island for a while and headed back to san marco.

We had dinner with a huge group of girls from the Villa Saturday night and headed to a bar for about an hour afterwards.

SUNDAY

Today we decided to head to San Polo and check out the other side of the main area of Venice.

went to Venezia for my first weekend because it was my favorite place the last time if was here