Venice

During our three week course we were given one week that was intentionally left open so the students could have a chance to venture off into Europe wherever they choose. Adam, Joseph, and I choose Venice for the weekend. I do not doubt my decision in the least bit. Venice was above and beyond the most unique and tourist friendly city that I've been to in Italy. The architecture and strucutre of the city was magnificent. Not only are there no cars present in the city, but to walk around and take everything in was, up to this point, the most memorable part of this trip. I can't begin to explain the feeling of being in a city like this. Being that I was taken away by the scenery, I will be posting several pictures of the city on my blog. However, I'd like to share my 2 day and one night adventure into Venice starting from the beginning.

After boarding a train from Florence, we took a three hour train ride into the outskirts of Venice. Soon after hopping out of the train and onto the Venice streets we knew this voyage would be like nothing we've ever seen before. I say this because i've never been to a city where the main use of transportation was bridges. I'd say that we crossed nearly 20 to 30 different bridges due to all of the canals running through the city. The more and more I think about it as I sit in my chair and type my blog, the more and more i'm blown away that a city was built on top of water. I said it for the leaning tower of Pisa and I'll say it for this experience as well. There is a HUGE difference from seeing Venice in pictures than there is when you actually experience it first hand. Anyways, back to the trip. Seeing that we were all famished from the 3 hour train ride, we mosied into a quaint little restaurant right on the edge of one of the canals. The food was good, but the scenery was spectacular. I'm really harping on the structure and architecture of the city because it was that magnificent. After lunch we walked around the city for at least three hours until booking a three star hotel named "Hotel Bruno." I was exhausted from the trip and opted to stay in before dinner while Bell and Joe went shopping. While in the hotel room I watched CNN. Not because I wanted up to date news information, but because it was the only channel in English. This whole language barrier is not only killin my TV time, but interacting with Italian girls is extremely difficult. Once they returned back from shopping we all took showers and headed out for the night. We found a nice place in the heart of Venice that had a three course deal for about 14 Euros. It was decent, but I can say from what I've experienced in both cities, I think the food in Florence is better than the food in Venice. After dinner we walked around more and then set up shop at a pub. I'm always into trying new beers so I had a couple Leffe's. Leffe originates in belgium and is a very strong beer with a dark color and strong bite. I enjoyed. After one or two Leffe's we headed back to the hotel and called it a night. The next day we woke up, grabbed something to eat, and took a scenic route back to the train station. Once arriving at the train station we had a couple hours to kill until our train so we all bought a book about Venice and read up on all of the rich history that Venice has to offer. That was a joke. However, the trip to Venice proved to be very beautiful and educational at the same time. While my trip to Venice was more from a Tourist perspective, rather than a student's, I feel I was able to grasp the main notion of the city. That notion being you will not be able to find this architecute and structure anywhere else in the world, so why not pay a couple extra euro's for a pizza while your here. I'm partly kidding, but all humor aside Venice takes the cake for the best experience since I've been in Italy.