After spending the week recovering from Barcelona, a few days in Venice was a welcomed change from a weekend of country hopping. Our program sponsored the two-day trip, so we were treated to the best sites of Venice and an apartment-style hotel. We arrived in Venice Friday morning and reached our hotel just in time to experience high tide and a few inches of flooding in San Marco Square. We maneuvered through the water and onto the raised sidewalks to Palazzo Ducale (the Doges Palace) to meet our tour guide, Luisella. We toured the huge palace, where if you stand very still, you can feel the floors vibrating. Since Venice is built on swamps and the entire city is supported by wooden pilings, all the buildings are very light weight, hence the shaking floors.
We made a quick stop at the San Marco church, which is still active today, and then headed to my favorite part of the weekend, a glass blowing demonstration. Murano, an island near Venice, is famous for its blown glass, and we we’re lucky enough to see this amazing technique first hand. Glass blowing is a dying art form, as there are very few masters around today. The talent is passed from father to son and takes 15 to 20 years to learn. We watched a glass blowing master sculpt a vase, horse and turtle. I was in complete awe and wanted to spend the entire day there.
Okay, so I may have lied when I said glass blowing was my favorite event of the weekend. Our next stop in Venice was a gondola ride, which is definitely up there as far as highlights of the weekend go. Although I was absolutely terrified of falling into the canals, I got over my fear and was able to enjoy the sites of Venice. After the tour, Julia, Brittany and I lost ourselves in the narrow Venice streets and spent the afternoon buying gifts for just about everyone we know. We had a delicious dinner by our hotel where I was very adventurous and sampled beef carpaccio and veal (aren’t you proud Mom and Dad!). We ended the night at the Rialto Bridge to snap a few pictures of the gorgeous city.
We met up with the rest of our group Saturday for a walking tour that ended in the old Jewish ghetto. Unfortunately, the famous Gam Gam’s restaurant was closed so we didn’t get our matzah ball soup fix. Instead, we did some gift shopping at the blown glass store in the ghetto (Venice is definitely the best place to buy gifts!). Our last stop before returning to Florence was the only kosher bakery open, where we stocked up on baked goods for the train.
I almost forgot that I am in Florence to study, so having five midterms in the span of three days was definitely interesting. After doing more work this week than I have all semester, I couldn’t be more excited to have the week off for spring break. I am literally counting down the minutes until I meet my family in Amsterdam!!
Ciao a tutti!!