Bright and early, we left Florence and headed for Venice. I was so excited to see Venice because I’ve heard so many good things about it from people I knew who visited it before, and I was more impressed with it than I thought I would be.
To get there, we left our hostel at 8:15 and then took a bus towards Venice. We stopped along the way for a 15 minute bathroom break, but that lasted a little longer than expected since three other busses were there for a break as well. I got a sandwich at the gas station just in case we wouldn’t have enough time to eat before our guided tour. We reached a train station and had to wait a few minutes for ours that would take us into Venice (because of not allowing any cars).
After exiting the train station, our group was greeted with a beautiful view of the Grand Canal. The beauty surpassed what I’ve seen in pictures. We got about an hour for lunch, so Kelsey and I were able to grab a small sandwich and a cannoli. We sat on a dock overlooking one of the canals.
We met back up with the group for a guided walking tour of the city. We walked through so many side street that I thought we would end up lost, but our trusted tour guide led us through quite a few historical places in Venice. She explained the story of Marco Polo, and since I learned about it in high school, it was great to see his square in person. I found it really interesting to look at the different masks that are so important to Venetian culture. My favorite was the doctor’s mask, which looks like an apothecary mask with eye glasses painted on it. Doctors used these masks during the time of the Black Plague that killed 1/3 of the population. These particular masks were used to try to stop the spread of the plague when doctors were treating patients as well as an attempt to help the smell of the disease. I also really loved seeing the hospital pointed out along the way. By just looking at the outside of the building, I would have assumed that it was another church. The outside was painted as an optical illusion to look like an actual doorway.
After the tour, we took a gondola ride, which was a great way to see the beautiful city.
We ran back to the train station in order to catch our ride back to Padova. After protestors delayed our ride back for at least 10 minutes, we made it back to the bus that took us to the hotel. Then, we walked to a restaurant to have a group dinner. Tomorrow, we leave for Milan, which is our last day with Matteo:(