So, last weekend I went to Venice, Italy for their famed Carnival celebration (the period leading up to the season of Lent). It's one of the oldest, longest running festivals in the world. I went with a group of 8 people. We flew out of Rome Thursday night, and got to Venice around 9. It was incredible the first few views; you have an idea of what to expect from movies, but it's SO different actually being there!
We walked to our hotel, taking lots of pictures of our first glimpses of Venice on the way. Our hotel was AWESOME, two rooms, 4 people to a room with HUGE beds. Us girls got the bigger room with the pretty chandelier! We dropped our stuff out and went out for the night! Met some crazy people on the way. We made friends with a group of people doing a "bridge crawl" where every time they cross a bridge, they took a drink (which is VERY often in Venice). Then, at the square that was the party-place for the night, there was an outdoor DJ, and tons of people in crazy costumes. I made friends with a girl in a full-on kangaroo costume! Loved it! Didn't stay out too late, though (relative to Rome at least), because we had a big day the next day!
Friday we woke up fairly early, had breakfast in the hotel, and made our way to San Marco, the famous square of Venice. On the way we stopped for pictures on the famous Ponte Rialto (the big famous bridge). I could have stayed all afternoon, but we made it to San Marco's. It's the square where the pigeons will actually land on you, and it's right next to the water. Thank goodness, it was way too crowded for any pigeons to land on me, I hate pigeons. This was the main area for Carnival, so there were a lot of people in the most elaborate costumes I've ever seen. They were gorgeous! We had bought some confetti on our way there, so we goofed off a little throwing confetti trying to take cute-sy pictures. It sort of worked. Then, we wandered off looking for a place to eat, and we went down this designer row street. There was Chanel, Hermes, Gucci... I had to have blinders on because I just kept stopping to drool. After lunch, we made our back to Ponte Rialto to go on a gondola ride. The boys were too stubborn to stop and ask for directions, so we kept going in the completely wrong direction. Us girls, contrary to the boys' assumptions, actually had a good sense of where we were and made our way around the city fairly easily. So, we split off from them, and made our way to Ponte Rialto with only one wrong turn (in contrast to the boys' 3 wrong directions). We'd stopped to get wine for the gondola ride, so the boys had beat us there and gone on a gondola without us. Jerks. BUT, it ended up working to our advantage. Gondola's are priced by boat, and on the main canal, they can get pretty expensive. Since it was just us 3 girls, it was pretty pricey, and we were debating whether or not to go. Then, these 3 Americans who'd been waiting for people to split a gondola with asked if we wanted to share a gondola. So, it was cheaper with 6 people rather than 4! It was really fun and cute, our gondolier's name was Max. He gave us a lot of information about Venice. The people we shared the gondola with lived on the army base in Germany and were on vacation. Then, after we got off the gondola ride and saw this guy wearing a cute sailor hat talking into a fancy camera. After he was done, we asked him where he got his hat, and he let us each get a picture in it. I asked him up what was up with the fancy camera, and he told us he's from New Zealand and he won a contest to travel the world for 3 months and document it. Then, the guy who was with him, I asked if he was going with him, and he said no, he was from Australia, and he was just backpacking around the world for 9 months. I was in love to say the least. Then, us girls FINALLY got to go shopping for our masks! We found this great store, and I wanted the most elaborate mask I could afford, but the full face masks were difficult to breathe in. I found a gorgeous, half-face mask with feathers, so I was thrilled to finally have my mask! On our way to San Marco's, we had passed some awesome sales, so after masks, we went shopping! I got a pair of awesome, super comfy 10 euro shoes, a 5 euro watch, and some presents for Mandi, Ryan and Mommy of Murano glass which is unique to Venice. We made our way back to the hotel before it got dark, and took well deserved naps. We had one last crazy, fun night out in Venice, and I made sure to use the last of my confetti!
Saturday morning we woke up and checked out of the hotel and got our last glimpses of Venice. We slowly made our way to the train station trying to get our fill. Wish I could have stayed longer in the City of Sin, but hopefully, I'll get to go back!
No comments:
Post a Comment