Venezia, Italia

Venice was our second city in Italy and my personal favorite. If this is the first Italy blog you are reading you should scroll down and read about Milan first! And if you are not able to leave me comments you should scroll farther down and learn how to follow my blog!! :)

Sunday, Feb. 1 continued
We arrived in Venice and it was raining once again! We found our hostel very easily from the train station, but no one answered when we buzzed the door. So we roamed Venice for 3 hours stopping for pizza by the slice (salamino!! Haha yum) and when we finally got into the hostel, the owner said “Good thing I was here…you are early!!” We didn’t even tell him we had been there for three hours. We tried making small talk and asked him what the weather was supposed to be like for the rest of the week. He replied, “You will know when you wake up.” Haha he wasn’t too friendly, but the place was sooo nice!! We had our own private room and bathroom again and we got breakfast in bed in the morning!!

Monday, Feb. 2
We took a ferry around Venice for an hour. It’s like a bus for the people who live there, but we thought it was amazing and used it to sight see. Unfortunately, the only camera we had died, but we got plenty of pictures later so don’t worry. By the time we were done, we were freezing and I ended up buying 8 euro gloves even though I already had a pair back in Granada. All of the stores were selling decorative masks. They were literally everywhere we turned, and we were very confused. We eventually found out that they were for the festival of Carnival which is in February in Venice. We also saw sooo much Murano glass – it was absolutely gorgeous. They had everything from jewelry to wine stoppers made out of this glass that is found on one of the islands in Venice. It was very expensive and breakable otherwise I would have bought ALL of you something I promise ;) All day we were followed around by Japanese tourists because they thought we knew where we were going!! We ate chicken sandwiches at a small café for lunch and met some Americans from LA. When we heard them speaking English, Heather got really excited and yelled, “They speak American!” And Dorothy and I told her that they could clearly understand us haha. They told us they were studying in the Netherlands and all of us were just so excited to find other people who spoke English. It was so hard to be in a place where we could not communicate with the majority of the people. Then we got 1 euro gelato even though it was freezing cold outside, and we bought sandwiches for dinner and ate them in the hostel. We were literally the ONLY people in the hostel which was kind of creepy!!

Tuesday, Feb. 3
We went to Piazza San Marco - a very famous plaza in Venice where a lot of movie scenes are filmed. For example - Vantage Point was filmed in this plaza!! Take a look at the pics. There were tons of pigeons here too haha and we took pictures of a family that was literally COVERED in them! I laugh so hard when I even think about it! You have to look at the pics! We also went into the church. We also went to the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo which is a small palace with a huge famous outdoor spiral staircase leading to the top that is from the 15th century. It was really pretty and hard to find! AND THEN WE WENT ON A GONDOLA RIDE! We got a "student discount" after we said no to the 80 euro offer and we had the best tour guide ever! He spoke English and he gave us a 35 minute tour. We saw Fondamenta de la Preson which was the first prison in Venice from the 13th century, The post office haha, the first bridge also from the 13th century to be built in Venice, Marco Polo's house, Santa Maria de la Fava which is an old 15th century church, Cassanova's house, and of course, we went under the kissing bridge <3 We learned soo much from our guide!! He told us all about the water levels and the flooding. He told us that people only use the first floor for storage and that not everyone has boats because the city is small enough to walk everywhere. (There were literally no cars here at all in case you didn't know) And we asked him if it was hard to man the gondola and he said "With winds it's very technical." Then I asked him if his arms were really strong (he was wearing a jacket) and he said "Yes" with a huge grin, and that just made his day!! After the ride, we went to the huge Rialto fish market and walked around and ate fresh nuts. We had awesome paninis for lunch. (I have pictures) and italian pastries!! (I had cannoli crema) And then it was time to go to Florence.