Spring Break: VENICE

So I spent my two week long spring break mostly in Italy, and made my way over to Barcelona. For blogs sake, Ill just post city by city, otherwise Ill be on my computer for hours :) 

I decided to fly out to Italy a day later than the other four girls that I was traveling with, mostly due to a huge amount of schoolwork due when I returned, but also because a flight on Tuesday to Milan was about 50 euro less expensive, plus other kids from U of I were flying early that morning as well. When we fly to Italy, we've found it easiest to fly into Milan Linate and take a train from there. So thats what I did on my way to Venice. Some people stayed an extra night in Milan to go to an M83 concert, but I'd rather see Venice. The Milan trainstation is definitely one of the biggest in the country, and I would definitely compare it to Grand Central in NY or a Union station on steroids. 

Trenitalia is the largest train company in Italy, operation high speed trains to basically every city in the country. A train ticket from Milan to Venice ran about 9 euro, however my ticket from Florence to Rome was about 29 euro. It all depends on when you book it, I wish I had taken pictures inside the trains, they are super nice.

When I got to Italy, our hostel was really close to the train station, so meeting up with the girls was no problem at all. Venice is a very touristy area, so there was no real language barrier, as most people in the city spoke english. Looking back, the only place I really encountered a language barrier was Verona, since it is definitely a smaller city.

Our first night in Venice, we walked around and found our friend Catherine from Dublin, who was also staying in the city that night. We made our way to San Marco Square, which at night was absolutely breathtaking. Getting lost in Venice is pretty much unavoidable, since street signs sometimes are just graffiti on a wall.

We went out to dinner on the Grand Canal, the largest canal of water running through Venice, and our waiter told us of this bar to go to, one of the most popular among tourists. We said sure. This place was awesome. Posing as an Irish pub, this place had notecards plastered all over the walls of the place, signed and decorated by tourists from all over the world, writing their sorority/fraternity letters, school names and mascots, or just quirky sayings. I made two.

Waking up the next morning in Venice was beautiful. Italy just makes you into a morning person, since most places close for siesta around noon anyways. We walked around, trying to take the city in as much as possible. we were really only there for a day, in which you wan literally see the whole city. However i could have spent a week there if I was able. We insisted that we went back to San Marco, since most of our pictures didnt turn out so great the night before in the dark.

After that, we made our way over to the Rialto Bridge, probably the most famous landmark in the city. Its a bridge that is in essence a street, with stores alone the edges of it, crossing over the Grand Canal.

We missed Carneval by a couple weeks, however masks from the festival are definitely the best souvenir to purchase on the island. They are the most beautiful things and are EVERYWHERE.

My favorite part of Venice were all the side streets and canals. Gondolas floating through the waterways everywhere, some of the most beautiful places were the places not crowded by tourists and photographers.

Venice gave me my first taste of Italian food...my favorites:

Gelato. It is everywhere and comes in every flavor. over time, you can tell real authentic gelato by simply looking at it. We learned that the Gelatarias that said "authentico" in fact, were not. Of course, my favorite was coffee, with a scoop of hazelnut. But once I tried pistachio and some fruity mixes as well. You can't go wrong.

Pizza. Everyone kept on telling me that pizza was everywhere in Italy. They weren't kidding. In one day, I truly ate pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was a good day. Pizza was nothing like back home. They literally cook it in front of you, making the wait very long, but the laid back atmosphere was one of the things I loved about Italy, and is everywhere, even in Rome.

I feel like my Italy blog posts are all pictures, but really I spent my entire time there trying to soak everything in, literally tripped over myself hundreds of times, looking up at everything there was to see. The small city charm of Venice was one of a kind, and was unique to any other city we visited.