We hopped off the traghetto at San Toma and made the short walk to our hostel, A Venice Museum. That's right, we stayed in a museum turned hostel. It was amazing, with large marble staircases, balconies, high vaulted ceilings, and a little courtyard. But the details of that little hostel are nothing compared to the rest of Venice. At the hostel, we had met one of our Irish rugby teammates Fiona who had decided to join us for the Venice leg of our trip and we were all excited to spend the next couple of days together. The receptionist recommended that we spend our afternoon on Burano, one of the nearby islands just a half hour water taxi ride away. We decided to take his advice and hopped on the next traghetto to the island. It was an absolutely beautiful day with lots of sunshine and a nice breeze. When we arrived at the island, the first thing I noticed was the vibrant colors of the houses lining the narrow street. Each house is painted its own fun and bright color giving the little island a lot of character. The streets were lined with shops selling Venetian masks, famous Murano glass, and other miscellaneous items. We couldn't help ourselves, we shopped until we dropped! There was too much unique and beautiful items to pass up on a little shopping spree. The island was small and we spanned over its entirety in about two hours, shopping and all. It was late in the afternoon by that time so we decided to return to the mainland for dinner and some rest.
The hostel offered a three course meal for 5Euro and between the cheap price and the opportunity to dine with other travelers, we just couldn't pass it up. We dined with Australians, Canadians, and other Americans who were staying in the museum, swapping stories over pasta, homemade potato chips, and hummus. One of the receptionists who hails from Brazil even made a native Brazilian drink for us to try. Boy do those Brazilians like their tequila! Dinner went until almost 11PM without us realizing it had gotten so late. We decided to turn in soon after so that we could take on Venice bright and early the next day.
There was not much on our itinerary as far as seeing sights in Venice besides making it to Saint Mark's Square to feed the pigeons so we kept to the old saying "get lost in Venice." We wandered around shopping, snacking, taking pictures, and falling even more in love with the city. I loved the narrow streets, the old architecture, the endless canals...everything. It is really confusing to navigate through the intertwined streets and alleyways but when you aren't on a schedule it's really not a problem.
We crossed the Grande Canal on the Ponte di Rialto which kind of reminded me of the Ponte Vecchio that we had seen in Florence. It was crowded with shops and tourists but offered great views of the canal.
From Ponte di Rialto we made our way to San Marco to feed the pigeons and meet up with our friend Shannon who also studies in Galway and happened to be visiting Venice at the same time. The square was crowded with people and pigeons and a little girl gave us some bird feed to get them to come to us. The pigeons were not hesitant at all and as you can see I did not enjoy the experience at all...
I was too skeeved out by the pigeons to like them climbing all over me with their little claws so I threw the rest of my feed and ran away after about 15 seconds. However, there were two little girls who really seemed to enjoy the experience. Gross.
The square itself was nice although I was a bit disappointed that the majority of it was under construction so I couldn't see it in full. But we strolled through and headed toward the river to see the Bridge of Sighs, the bridge over which prisoners sentenced to death would cross to see their last glimpse of the world before their execution.
From the promenade we continued exploring Venice and looked for a place to grab lunch. After we ate, Shannon left us to join back up with her friends and we went back in the direction of the hostel, getting lost and exploring more along the way.
We washed up and relaxed at the hostel for a bit before going out to have the ultimate Venetian experience: a gondola ride. Prices go up by over 20Euro before 7PM so we were determined to be on the boat before then. We bartered with an older man and got a 35 minute ride for 15Euro each and it was worth every penny. Our gondolier was a young Italian man named Nicolo and he was gorgeous! As well as informative and entertaining. We popped champagne and snacked on strawberries as he took us through the backroad canals and briefly on the main canal. The sun began setting and we got great views of the city from down in the water. It was definitely the best part of visiting Venice.
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| He is so handsome, right?! I would have loved to bring him home as a souvenir but he had a girlfriend. Surprise, surprise. |
After our gondola ride, we grabbed some pizza for dinner then Katie and I continued wandering the city while Caitrin, Lindsey, and Fiona went to a mask shop for a mask-making tutorial. When it began to get dark, Katie and I went back to the hostel to shower and organize ourselves for the flight back to Ireland in the morning. A while later the other girls came back and we decided to go out for a bit with other people from our hostel. We went to a local bar and had drinks with Australians, Argentinians, Irish, Canadians, and others. I really like hearing about other peoples travels, where they have been and where they are going. It got late fast and we had to be up at 5:30AM so we walked back to the hostel with a couple of other girls to pack and hit the hay. The next morning we took a bus from Piazzale Roma to Venice-Treviso Airport, which was the sorriest looking excuse for an airport that I have ever seen. It was so small that it looked more like a bus station than an airport but we made it through security and passport patrol in record time. Unfortunately, that's where the smoothness of our trip ended. We boarded the plane for our 10:10AM departure late and we ready for takeoff at about 10:30. The pilot told us we were ready to go and then we sat for a half an hour in the same spot before he came on and told us that they were having mechanical issues. After another half an hour of sitting on the stalled plane, he reported that there was a problem with the hydraulic system and a mechanic was called to check out the situation, but he would not make it to the airport for another four hours. Why they didn't have a mechanic on site is beyond me, but in we went to the airport as our flight was delayed indefinitely. We sat around and waited until about 2:15PM when an announcement told us that we would be leaving within the hour. So we boarded the plane once again and finally took off around 3PM. It was the worst flight of my life, the pilot drove like a maniac making abrupt turns and landing the plane going way too fast. I had never been so happy to be in Dublin when we finally landed around 5:15. Fiona drove us from Dublin to Galway and we were back in Menlo Park by 8PM. It had been a long and dramatic end to a great trip. I was sad that it was over but happy to be able to lay in my own bed and relax after such a week. I'm sure the travel bug will be back soon, though, and Venice is at the top of my list!
Love and travel bugs,
Haley
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