After a long week of midterms, it was nice to have a little weekend getaway in Italy! Our school took us on a trip to Venice for two days. All I knew about Venice was that it was famous for the claustrophobic streets, water canals, masks, and gondola rides of course! We left from Florence early Saturday morning and got to Venice in about two hours! Once we got there, we checked into our hotel and started exploring!
The first place we visited was the Santa Maria Basilica. This church was beautiful on the inside! Below is a picture of the basilica and the awesome relics found inside.
After visiting the church, we went on a walking tour of Venice!
We stopped for lunch at an adorable restaurant with a patio! They had the most AMAZING pizza! I think it was my favorite pizza in all of Italy! I ordered a fiatin pizza...and it was delicious! The pizza had a white sauce, with garlic, basil, tomatoes, and pine nuts! The best part of it was the thin italian crust.
After lunch, we went on a water taxi tour of Venice. It's so different being in a city with no cars! Everyone travels by boat which was really cool, but I think it would get old after a while.
The water taxi eventually dropped us off in the middle of San Marco Square! As you can see it was absolutely magnificent! Definitely a major tourist spot of Venice, but I definitely can understand why. The famous birds....yeah there were thousands of them here! They have no fear...I felt like I dodged multiple birds throughout the day.
I finally can say I can check an item off my bucket list! I rode on a gondola in Venice! There were 11 of us girls so we split in two groups and rode side by side through the night. Romantic right? All I needed was my italian boyfriend to make it perfect! At least I had Jade by my side ha! It was so peaceful and serene in Venice at the night time. We were the only ones on the water and we felt like we had the city to ourselves.
Our gondola driver! He told us he once had Mick Jagger on one of his gondola rides!
All of us girls on the gondola!
After we took the gondola, we went to dinner at a nice restaurant by the water. Jade and I ordered grilled seabass and let's just say it was a little different than what we expected. They first brought the fish out to us with the head still attached, then they cut it up in front of us. I wasn't a fan...it was filled with little fish bones which made it hard to eat.
The next day we explored Venice and learned all about the famous venetian masks! We were lucky enough to tour a mask factory and get an inside scoop on how these amazing masks are made. I had no idea how talented you had to be to make the masks. They are expensive too!!! Some of them were a couple hundred euro! I was amazed by all the different masks and detail put into them. A bunch of us girls bought them to wear for Halloween and to have as a souvenir of Venice!
The master mask maker!
Although our trip to Venice was short, I was definitely ready to head back to Florence. The night life in Venice was quiet, but the city was beautiful. It definitely was a lot colder there than it has been in Florence. I'm so grateful that our program was able to take us there because I think it would have been confusing to do on our own. We managed to find our way around for the most part- until the last part of the second day. We were walking around in mazes trying to find our hotel. Overall I loved Venice and I'm happy I was able to experience it!
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