Two Days in Venice

We got in to Venice on the afternoon of Saturday, May 2^nd—what a beautiful way to begin our time in Italy—the canals, gondolas, and bridges couldn’t have been more picturesque. This car-less sinking city was built on a lagoon 1,500 years ago, and is now massively taken over by tourism. Outside the train station, we waited in an endless line to buy our Vaporetto waterbus passes—any place that doesn’t have cars as a means of transportation is fine by me. Venice is so unique in the fact that there really aren’t any streets, only sidewalks for people, and canals for boats. But I guess if I knew that my house was sinking and would one day disappear, I probably wouldn’t be too pumped to live there. Initially, we weren’t even sure that we were going to include Venice in our itinerary, because everything I had heard about it was so focused on the massive amounts of tourists and the astronomically high costs. But in retrospect, I am so glad that we did.

We stayed in a hostel on the island of Lido, which is a little south of the Venetian islands, a 20 minute vaporetto ride. It was much cheaper to stay off the main island, and we also got to enjoy the ride in on the boat each day. For the locals, riding the vaporotto is about as exciting as taking the metro in D.C., but for us, it was a thrilling joyride through the canals with a great view of the water and the stunning buildings.

Our time in Venice was spent mostly roaming through the streets trying to get lost. It’s really not a huge city to go to museums, see art, and go sight seeing in, but rather just wander, enjoy the beautiful views, and soak in the feeling of the city. There are a few big tourist things to see, which we did of course: we toured St. Mark’s Basilica and Doge’s Palace. St. Mark’s Square is the center of the city, and is home to the basilica, the palace, and several other museums. It’s also famous for it’s pigeons and 10 euro cups of coffee you can enjoy seated outside on the plaza. Redic.

The highlights really came down to a few small things. We had dinner at this great little restaurant called Nono Risorto (recommended by our fifth traveler, Rick Steves), where we had a relaxing meal seated outside in their garden terrace under a leafy canopy of flower covered vines. The atmosphere and the wait staff was just so youthful and unpretentious, and the food was amazing. Good conversation followed late into the night, when we headed to the canal to catch the vaporetto back to Lido. There was a thunderstorm rolling in as the sun was setting. The sky turned a rich purpley-blue shade, and as we were on the boat, we watched lightening light up the sky the entire way. The night closed with another intense, yet senseless round of Hearts sitting on our bed in the hostel. Eventually we would get so tired and lose our ability to strategize as we played that we knew it was time to call it a night.