Hello all! I hope you had a Happy Easter or a nice weekend, at least. I was on vacation in Italy for the past two weeks! There is SO much to tell you and SO many photos to show you that I had to split it up into each city we visited.
First was Venice! Like a lot of the style of Europe, it’s sort of modge-podged together and, for Venice in particular, all of the buildings are touched by algae and from far away they look as if they are simply sitting on top of the water.
We took our first day to just walk around and discover what there was to do. As it turns out… not that much. The historical center of the city was just across from our hostel. There is St. Mark’s Basilica, St. Mark’s squares, St. Mark’s Tower and the Duke’s Palace. The Basilica is fairly impressive because the interior is decorated with golden mosaic’s. The Duke’s Palace was nice. I realize that I’ve become a bit jaded, but when you live in Europe once you see one palace… you’ve kind of seen them all. However, I did take pictures which you can see on the link below.
After the Basilica, Palace, and an art museum, we explored some more. We ran across Rialto, the richest and most quintessential Venetian area… for tourists at least. Evidently, Venice makes very lovely glass and along the streets of Rialto were many glass shops with beautiful blown glass.
We would have taken a ride on the gondola if it hadn’t cost 80 Euros. No big deal because the next day we took a tour down the Grand Canal on a vaporetto, the Venetian transportation system that uses boats instead of buses. The Grand Canal is lined with old building and gardens. It’s almost surprising that the face of the building arrives just at the edge of the canal. Sometimes there are sidewalks between the two and sometimes there are stairs that go into the water to receive passengers from boats and gondolas. There are bridges that connect the banks of the canals, too. All of this comes together to be rather charming.
For our last day in Venice, we traveled to the islands nearby, Burano and Lido. Burano is a charming little place with colorful buildings and shops that sell lace. Lido is an actual island. I say actual because in Venice there are no cars or bikes or anything like a normal metropolis bu Lido has cars and condominiums and a beach and all the stuff that one would actually need to live in a city.
We had planned on going out that night but we ended up meeting some people in our hostel. I talked to two Australian and New Zealand guys and Sara hung out ith two girls from Argentina. In fact, the other girls had similar itineraries and we bumped into them in both Florence and Rome!
But that’s that for Venise. If you ever plan to go, know that they are infamous throughout Italy for horrible service (TRUE) and it’s expensive because they know everyone is a tourist. Yet, it’s something to be seen and experienced!
Click on the picture to see the photos from Venice
First was Venice! Like a lot of the style of Europe, it’s sort of modge-podged together and, for Venice in particular, all of the buildings are touched by algae and from far away they look as if they are simply sitting on top of the water.
We took our first day to just walk around and discover what there was to do. As it turns out… not that much. The historical center of the city was just across from our hostel. There is St. Mark’s Basilica, St. Mark’s squares, St. Mark’s Tower and the Duke’s Palace. The Basilica is fairly impressive because the interior is decorated with golden mosaic’s. The Duke’s Palace was nice. I realize that I’ve become a bit jaded, but when you live in Europe once you see one palace… you’ve kind of seen them all. However, I did take pictures which you can see on the link below.
After the Basilica, Palace, and an art museum, we explored some more. We ran across Rialto, the richest and most quintessential Venetian area… for tourists at least. Evidently, Venice makes very lovely glass and along the streets of Rialto were many glass shops with beautiful blown glass.
We would have taken a ride on the gondola if it hadn’t cost 80 Euros. No big deal because the next day we took a tour down the Grand Canal on a vaporetto, the Venetian transportation system that uses boats instead of buses. The Grand Canal is lined with old building and gardens. It’s almost surprising that the face of the building arrives just at the edge of the canal. Sometimes there are sidewalks between the two and sometimes there are stairs that go into the water to receive passengers from boats and gondolas. There are bridges that connect the banks of the canals, too. All of this comes together to be rather charming.
For our last day in Venice, we traveled to the islands nearby, Burano and Lido. Burano is a charming little place with colorful buildings and shops that sell lace. Lido is an actual island. I say actual because in Venice there are no cars or bikes or anything like a normal metropolis bu Lido has cars and condominiums and a beach and all the stuff that one would actually need to live in a city.
We had planned on going out that night but we ended up meeting some people in our hostel. I talked to two Australian and New Zealand guys and Sara hung out ith two girls from Argentina. In fact, the other girls had similar itineraries and we bumped into them in both Florence and Rome!
But that’s that for Venise. If you ever plan to go, know that they are infamous throughout Italy for horrible service (TRUE) and it’s expensive because they know everyone is a tourist. Yet, it’s something to be seen and experienced!
Click on the picture to see the photos from Venice
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| Venice |
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