First full day in Venice

Maggie and I woke up in the morning and had to pack our stuff up to move hostels. Luckily for Maggie our next hostel was quite close, maybe a 5-minute walk. We had to cross through a square, cross a bridge and the hostel was at the end of the canal. When you walk under this beautiful archway it says University Housing, in Italian of course, apparently it is housing for 120 students that is run by the church, and you have to be selected to live there since its on an honors system. The boys and girls are in separate wings but there are no locks on the doors. Interesting little fact. Anyway we were not with the students, we were in our own hostel part of the area, and it does look like an old church or something, with 2 little courtyards. Anyway when we got there we couldn’t go in the room yet so we just dropped our bags off at the front desk. Then we set off for Ca’ D’Oro and Galleria Giorgio Francehetti which is 2 joined palaces with the Baron’s art collection.

From there we headed to the Piazza San Marco, the largest and most beautiful square in Venice.

There was quite a bit of construction within the plaza, but it was still stunning, we were drawn immediately to the Basilica, with its domed towers, and 4 horses perched above the entrance. The line was quite long but totally worth it the walls and ceilings were covered with gold mosaics.

It was truly amazing, I’m happy it was Maggie’s first visit to a church in Europe! By this time we were quite hungry, but since this was the touristy area in Venice, we needed to get out of there. I really have never experienced this many tourists in one area. Venice is not that large of a place and everywhere you go there are people (Maggie and I decided that the city is much more beautiful at night- when you can see things besides people). So for lunch we ventured away from San Marco in search of cheaper food options, we found a cute little pizza place where we got a ham pizza. We sat outside and enjoyed a nice break, as the service is quite slow, it was nice to have forced relaxation time. After lunch we wanted to go the Doge’s Palace. Wow was that amazing! We almost didn’t go in because the ticket was so expensive, but we ended up being able to get a student discount. I’m really happy we didn’t miss it. I was not happy that you were not allowed to take pictures though. Because it was so amazing on the inside, so decadent, with walls covered in metallically woven fabrics, and the ceilings with 2 foot deep gold crown moldings, in the shapes of angels, and animals as well as just decorative leaves and such, which surrounded giant paintings.

(I snuck a picture)

One room even had paintings on the wall that the frames were actually attached to the wall, like a part of the wall it was so interesting. After the palace we decided to take a ride down the canal, so we hopped on a boat, but since it was just a water taxi there were so many people it was hard to really enjoy the ride down the canal. However it was nice to get out on the water. That dropped us off near our hostel and we went to move our bags into our room.

When we got to the room there was one girl in there, she was just laying in bed listening to music. We don’t think she spoke any English because we said hi and she never said anything to us. We sat in the courtyard and read a little then decided to try and make it to the San Rocco cathedral before it closed, we didn’t make it though. But we did find Danielle, Maggie’s roommate from KU who happened to be in Venice for a school trip. And went to dinner with her group at a nice Italian place. Then we hung out with them that night along the canal.

When we got back to the hostel, 2 girls were asleep. One in the most interesting position…

And a British girl, who just graduated with a fashion degree and is now taking 3 months off to travel around Europe. We stayed up and talked to her for a while, then hit the hay!

Chao!