Venezia

And finally we came to Venice. The first afternoon we were there we went to Murano, which is one of the other islands in the lagoon that is famous for glass-blowing. We took the "water bus" there, so we got some great views of the lagoon. The next day was Easter, so after Mass (which was in Italian, so I didn't understand a word of it) we basically just walked all over town, taking a zillion pictures and marveling at everything. Before our trip I looked up all the places were were going to visit on Wikipedia to get some ideas for things to see/do. On the Venice page, it said that Venice is often considered one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I was skeptical at first, because a lot of the buildings are actually rather run-down. But the more I walked around the more it struck me: it didn't matter that the buildings themselves were not necessarily the prettiest or most impressive I had ever seen, it didn't matter that to get anywhere you have to wander through these tiny alleys that in any other city would be totally sketchy. Venice is just so unique that even these things are beautiful.

What was also interesting about Venice is that it's more of a "Sehenswuerdigkeit" (meaning something worth seeing or an object of interest) than a real town. Side note: by "Venice" I mean the old part of town that is on the island; most of the population of Venice actually lives across the bridge on the mainland. It's a great place to walk around and relax, but there's not really much going on in terms of entertainment, night-life, etc. Plus it's really expensive. But definitely something you should see in your lifetime (especially since it keeps sinking).

I really did enjoy Venice a lot, which possibly had a lot to do with the hostel we stayed at. It was definitely the best one of the trip: clean and comfortable with an actual community feeling. There were breakfast foods (cornflakes, toast and nutella, eggs) that you could help yourself too, and dinner was served every night, so we actually met a lot of other people staying in the hostel. That was good for me, because Pascal had to leave a day earlier than I did (since his classes started earlier; I stayed the extra day because the flight was cheaper). But the night before he left some cool Americans who were exchange students in Madrid this semester checked in, and I spent the next day hanging out with them. I should also mention that the owner of this hostel was absolutely insane. He was always in the hostel, whether it was midnight or 7 in the morning. He was super friendly and willing to help with anything. He also doled out some of his homemade wine out of a 2 liter plastic bottle every night at dinner and regaled us by singing along to YouTube videos of America's Got Talent. He was a character for sure.

Ok, that's the end of the Italy posts. Moving a bit north, the next post will be about Denmark. Ciao!

*P.S. sorry the pics got so out of order, but I'm just gonna leave them because it would take way too long to rearrange them all.


I'm sure you've heard it before, but there really are a disgusting amount of pigeons in St. Mark's Square, and they are completely used to humans, so they have no problem flying right at your face and veering at the last second. Even more disgusting: people who let the pigeons land on them. They're called sky rats for a reason, people.



Me trying to kick a pigeon (I actually got one in the end! It was very satisfying)


St. Mark's Square and Basilica



Ponte Rialto


The Grand Canal





On Murano, the glassblowing island


On the way to Murano



Palazzo di Doge and views of the bell tower in St. Mark's Square





that's the church Maria della Salute



Unfortunately, gondola rides are outrageously expensive, so Pascal and I couldn't afford one. Maybe we should have tried to earn a little money by "playing" water glasses, like this guy (he actually was pretty good)





Clandestine picture from the inside of St. Mark's. And of course my camera battery died as soon as we got out on the terrace overlooking the square, but if you're curious what it looks like, you can check it out on the internet