An afternoon in Venice
Our day started with a three hour bus ride from Florence to Venice. I slept the whole time, which is honestly a blessing (I normally am unable to get a good amount of sleep on any sort of transportation vehicle).
We arrived in Venice at around 1pm and had an hour to go and get lunch. Em, Beth and I found a little corner pizza take away shop and got pizza and croissants, and then we also visited a fruit stand where I had fresh fruit for the first time in days!! I got a fresh kiwi juice, and it was heavenly.
After our quick lunch break, we had a 2 hour walking tour of Venice with a local guide. Venice is such a unique city – it’s built on over 100 tiny islands and has over 400 bridges that connect all of the islands together to from an interwoven city tied together by the water that flows through it. There are no cars in Venice – just boats! If there’s a medical emergency, the ambulance comes on the water. I pictured my sister, an EMT, responding to a call driving a boat😂
If you’re a local, chances are you have your own family boat. If you don’t, you use the public boat transportation. The buildings even have what they call “water doors” – doors that are built into the houses at water level so they can easily just hop in their boats and drive away! And yes, there is a speed limit on the water.
Marco Polo is also from Venice…..this whole time I thought he was from Spain??? Elementary education where you at???
Now seems like a good break for pictures. I couldn’t stop taking them; everywhere we turned was another picturesque corner just waiting to be caught on my camera. None of these are filtered – Venice is just *that* beautiful.
Gorgeous, right? You see the famous “Bridge of Sighs” at the end there? It’s Venice’s only bridge that is complete covered on the sides and the top. Apparently, everyone thinks it’s a romantic landmark of Venice – couples in Gondolas take a tour through the waterways of Venice just to kiss underneath it. However, that bridge was anything but romantic back during the time of its original use – to transport prisoners back and forth from the political building to the prison. I love the irony in that.
Another aspect about Venetian life is that the roads and streets in the city are constantly flooding, due to the city literally being on water. All Venice citizens supposedly have their own collection of rubber boots for when this happens (different colors to match different outfits), and the city makes special roadway arrangements, but only when it reaches above knee level.
The streets/roads in Venice flood approximately 150 times a year. One hundred and fifty! I’m sure they’d laugh if they ever knew schools sometimes would have to cancel if there was too much flooding.
The whole time I was walking through this town, I just couldn’t believe that people actually live there. Venetians here and there were fighting their way through the crowds to get to their tiny doors (through which I would not fit), and some were on their boats going to and from work. Some of the streets were so narrow, not even two single file lines would fit comfortably down the street. I had to duck my head more than a couple of times…#tallpeopleprobs.
A lot of people I have talked to have been to Venice before and have talked about how utterly dirty it was. My mom was in Venice in the 80s and said that it was just dirty, gross, and not really that pretty. But now, it seems so beautiful and relatively clean (definitely cleaner than Rome and Florence). I think Venice is a little like Pittsburgh in this way. Not only have both of those cities cleaned up their streets, air, etc., but they’re also in the top five for cities with the most bridges in the world. Pittsburgh has 446, and Venice has 409.
The Gondola Ride
Another tourist’s dream! A gondola ride through the waterways of Venice. I’ve been really excited about this, and it turned out to be so wonderful and sweet. It was so relaxed – a 30 minute ride on the main waterway and then through some streets and under tons of bridges.
Our gondolier was extremely fashionable – he was wearing his striped shirt, but cuffed his black skinny jeans and put on a leather jacket when it got chilly.
We also learned from our tour that gondoliers have to go through an extensive process to be trained to “drive” a gondola (it’s literally driving – they turn, break, accelerate, and decelerate with such skill). There are only 434 licenses in Venice (the exact number may be wrong, I can’t remember), and 433 of those licenses belong to men. There is only one female gondolier in Venice. She must have gone through a lot to get that license, and I would love to meet her.
It’s also a great honor to be a gondolier in Venice – they are respected highly, and they make a good living off of what they do. However, gondolas are not popular amongst Venetians – they are seen as luxury items, only used for special occasions like weddings.
Anyways, we got on our gondola and set off – it was wonderful! Here are some pictures:
I got to sit at the head of the boat (no clue how or why that happened). Here are some pictures Em took of me: #artsy
The gondola ride was awesome, but when we got off we were all so exhausted. I think I’m the most tired today of the entire trip. Walking 15,000-20,000 steps a day is starting to catch up to me. I’m so tired that I cried today looking at a picture of a kitten…in my defense, it was a really cute kitten. Another side note: there are SO MANY cute dogs in Italy!!!! SO MANY!! My entire body is screaming at me to drink more water and eat less pasta…but there’s not much I can do about that. I MISS ICE WATER SO MUCH. Send help. Send water.
We left Venice and drove about 45 minutes outside the city to Padua, where we’re staying for the night. It’s a cute little town, but we won’t get to see much of it, since we’re leaving at 7:15am to head to Milan (aggghhh). Our hotel is a lot nicer than what we just came from, even if it is a little bit smaller.
As I type this, I’m talking to an organ player from Rome who is here for a three day master class in playing the organ. I just asked him the coolest place he’s played, and he said St. Peter’s and Notre Dame in Paris…no big deal. He’s extremely friendly and is now telling us how much he loves the U.S. (he’s played there too).
I can’t believe this trip is already coming to an end, but I’m excited to see what Milan will bring us! It’s going to be a little crazy going from four days of no media visits to tons of visits in a row, but I think we’re all really excited to go to a new city.
So stay tuned for Milan adventures! Thank you, thank you, thank you again to all of you all who are reading these little posts. It’s so encouraging to know that people are reading these…truly! Until tomorrow!
Peace + love,
Carrie