Venice in a Nutshell

We've been home for a week now.  Looking back on the trip, it already seems kind of surreal.  But I never got around to posting about our stay in Venice, so I'll try to do that now.  I can't just leave out Venice, but this will be my last post.

After taking the Awesome Train from Florence to Venice, we had to take a water bus, or a vaporetto, to our hotel.  We stayed at a hotel right next to the Rialto bridge.  The Rialto is very similar to the Ponte Vechio in Florence.  It's a bridge that connects one side of the canal to the other, and has a ton of shops built on to it.  The main difference is that the Ponte Vechio has a ton of fancy jewelry shops while the Rialto has a ton of souvenir shops.  

Here is a picture of half of the Rialto Bridge.

Our hotel was pretty nice.  It was decorated in the Venetian style, with a lot of fancy masks and glass light fixtures.  Our room was almost entirely pink, but I saw one of the maids carrying a blue pillow so I don't think all the rooms were pink.  There was a huge Venetian glass chandelier in the middle of our room.  It had blue and pink flowers and was very ornate.  I don't think I got a picture of it, unfortunately.  We had a view of the canal in our room, which was nice, but kind of noisy sometimes.

Enough about the hotel though.  

Venice was packed.  Mostly tourists.  It felt much more crowded than Florence did, but I'm still not sure if that is because there were actually more people, or because there were less places for those people to be.  

This picture will give you a good idea of what I mean when I say "crowded".  I'm not kidding.  

It was beautiful though.  Keep in mind these pictures have not been edited or enhanced in anyway.  The buildings and things really were this colorful.  Many of these were taken from the terraces of a palazzo near our hotel that was open for an architectural display by a college in Houston.  The  display was very odd, but the views were amazing.

We did go on a gondola ride and it was a lot of fun.  The gondolier took us back through some of the smaller canals and by some interesting buildings.  He said that a license to be a gondolier is passed down through a family.  So not just anyone can run away to Venice to become a gondolier.  Another dream crushed...

We went to San Marco Square as well.  We saw the Basilica and the Doge's Palace.  They were both amazing, but you aren't allowed to take pictures of the inside of them.  So I only have a few pictures to show and they don't do the buildings justice.

 

Then, after one ten and a half hour flight later, we were back in the US.  I may have many souvenirs, 458 pictures, and an injured knee to show for our trip, but it still seems like it might have been a dream.  I think there must be something about really long plane rides that makes everything between them feel unreal.  Whenever I feel that way, I just have smell my new italian leather, and it takes me right back to the Mercato Centrale in Florence.  That sounds silly, but it's true.  

So there you have it!  A fairly decent account of our trip to Italy.  Thanks for reading!

Off to Venice at 300 km/h...

We are back on the Awesome Train headed to Venice!  We’ve had a wonderful time in Florence.  I love it there.   Everything there is so beautiful.  The buildings, the canal, the flowers, even the streets and sidewalks that are paved in stones.  Not great to walk or drive on, but beautiful.  There were people everywhere.  It was like New York City but prettier and with less cars and more side streets without muggers.  And older...  Way, way older.  

The sidewalks are so narrow in places that one person barely fits.  They also slant downwards and then back up at extreme angles without warning.  And the stones they are paved with are very uneven, to the point of being treacherous if you don’t look down constantly.  Which is difficult, because all I wanted to do was look at all the pretty things.  Both the architectural aspects of the city, and the things for sale. 

So most people walk in the street and hurry to the side when a taxi comes barreling down on them out of nowhere.  It’s amazing to me how many people don’t get hit by cars, Vespas, and bikes in Florence. 

Our hotel in Florence was beautiful, too.  There was marble all over the place.  Not to mention there were two bathrooms in our room.  It was awesome.  Except for my pillow, which was a flat rock…  But overall, the hotel was great.  It was very close to the Arno River, and only a couple minutes walk from the Ponte Vecchio bridge. 

We packed a lot of stuff into our two and a half days in Florence.  We saw the Accademia and the David, like I mentioned in the last post.  We went to the Duomo, the Uffizi, the Mercato Centrale, the Ponte Vecchio, the statues around the Bargello, and probably something else that I’m missing.  We did quite a bit of shopping, mostly for gifts for family members.  I even bought a couple small watercolors from a street artist!  There is this huge market outside the Mercato Centrale with booth after booth of Italian made items.  The amount of Italian leather there is hard to say, but it might be more than we have in the states combined.  It was amazing.

We are almost to Venice!

Ciao!

Jenna 

More Pictures!

We saw Michelangelo's David today, as well as the rest of the art in the Accademia.  The David was absolutely amazing.  Words cannot describe it, and pictures do not do it justice.  I took some anyway. 

Here are some of the other statues that the Accademia houses.

Also, I forgot to post about the Roman ruins we saw in Trieste.  They are believed to have been built in 100 BC.  They are off to one side of the main part of city.  Just tucked in with a mini-mart and several houses.  

In this picture, you can see the edge of the ruins and the side of the mini-mart (called a CO OP here).

We leave tomorrow for Venice.  Hopefully I can add a post about our stay in Florence during the train ride in the afternoon.

Jenna

Pictures from Duino

Pictures from the Duino part of our trip 

  Our Hotel

Castello Di Duino

 Trieste

An amusing street sign I found in Trieste.

Italy Day Four

We are currently on the train that is heading to Florence from the station in Venice.  I got just a quick glimpse of the Grand Canal in Venice, and it was gorgeous.  I’m excited to see more.  But first, we see Florence. 

Until now, we have been on Trenitalia trains.  I’m having trouble thinking of a good example to compare those trains to the one I am currently sitting in.  I guess a car analogy will have to do.  The Trenitalia trains felt similar to riding a city bus.  (I imagine anyway, as my only experience riding a city bus was on this trip coming from the airport to the train station.)  The Italo, the train we are on right now, is like the limo of trains.  It’s like first class on an airplane.  It’s awesome.  We have trays like you have on an airplane, but better because when I lowered it, there was still a good 8 inches between the edge of the tray and my stomach.  I have a cup holder, a plug in to charge my phone, a foot rest (which of course is a toe rest for me, as I’m short), a wifi connection, and a huge leather seat.  The only thing I’m missing is a TV, but that’s ok, because I couldn’t understand what the people on TV were saying anyway.  I’m pretty sure the train people come around offering drinks and food.  Also, my suitcase is tucked nicely in it’s little spot at the front of the car, where it is not squishing my toes.  Which is exactly what it did on every other train ride we’ve been on.  My mom just thought of another analogy for me: It’s like comparing a cab to a Cadillac.

Anyway, enough bragging about the awesome train. 

Going to Florence is exciting, but it was hard to leave Andy and Spencer back in Duino.  I’m really glad we got to spend time with them though.  And without them inviting use, this trip would never have happened. 

Not much has happened worth noting today, besides the awesome train, of course.  We’ve just been packing and then using various means of transportation.  I did note two interesting things on the train to Venice though.

First- there was a man mowing his yard in a speedo.  I suppose it could have been his underwear, but I’m choosing to believe it wasn’t.

Second- someone had graffitied “NO BURGER” under a picture of a hamburger on a wall of an old building.  No, they don’t want a burger?  No, they do want a burger?  No, burger! Don’t do that?  I haven’t a clue. 

Hopefully I can post some pictures soon.

Jenna

Concert and Castle Day

Italy Day Three

Today was Concert and Castle day.  After a breakfast at the hotel exactly like yesterday, we headed over to meet Andy, Spencer, and the other IMFA instructors and students at the entrance to the Castello di Duino.

The concert was wonderful.  The students did a great job and were all obviously very talented.  We really enjoyed it.  I think Mike posted a video of part of it on Facebook already, if you’re interested in hearing a piece of it.

After the concert was over, Mike, Mom and I went back to the hotel to change and get ready for the afternoon.  We went to a coffee bar/Panini place called, wait for it… Mickey Mouse for lunch.  Don't forget to say it with an Italian accent.  It makes it even better with the accent.  We all had paninis and they were delicious.

  

After lunch, we headed back to the Castello.  The castle is a beautiful mix of stone and stucco (I think it's stucco anyway).   I don’t know what year it was built or anything.  In fact, I don’t know much about it at all because all the plaques were in Italian.  Everything was beautiful, but the grounds were particularly impressive.  I wish I could show a bunch of pictures, but it took ages to upload just one. I'll try again once we're in Florence.  Hopefully a better wifi will help.

Tomorrow, we head to Florence by taxi and train.  Pretty exciting!

Jenna  

Italy Day Two

Today we had breakfast at the hotel.   We had some delicious croissants, which are called brioche here.  They had peach jelly type stuff in them and were the best croissants I’d ever had.   There were also different types of bread: crusty rolls that are popular in Europe but I don’t know what they are called, toast, and some regular wheat and white bread.   It was very good, but not like a breakfast in America.   There was no protein to be found.

Then we went into Trieste with Andy.  We took the bus.  The places in Duino that sell bus tickets were all sold out, so the woman at the coffee shop (called a bar here.  Everywhere you look is a sign for a bar, but it’s not what you’d think.), said to explain to the driver that the tickets were sold out and we’d buy them when we got to Trieste.  So Andy explained this to the driver, who said something that must have amounted to “that’s fine”, because we got on the bus, no problem.  When we got to Trieste, the driver motioned to Andy to follow him, and then took off at a trot.  The rest of us tried to keep them in sight, and eventually found them at the window to buy tickets.  Not only had the driver allowed us to ride the bus on the good faith that we would buy tickets when we got there, but he also helped us explain to the ticket lady what the problem was, and helped us figure out how to solve it.   It was very kind of him.

We walked around Trieste for a few hours.  We had a nice lunch at a small outdoor café.   Actually, come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve eaten inside since we got here.  Mike and I both had paninis and mom had a salad.  I’m not sure what Andy had.  Some type of raw meat and a side chopped up zucchini in a jar.

I bought a dress at a cute shop that sold a bunch of leather things as well as boutique-type things.  Nothing had a price on it, which was kind of intimidating.  When I finally asked “Quanto costa?” (One of the very few phrases I learned to say before we left.) the lady tried to tell me, but I hadn’t thought to learn how to understand her answer when I learned to ask.  So she wrote it down for me and was very nice about it.  Overall, my first Italian shopping experience went pretty well.

For dinner, Andy and Spencer took us to a restaurant right on the Adriatic coast.  It was beautiful there.  I understood what spaghetti and mezzalune were on the menu, and that was it.  If Andy and Spencer hadn’t been with us, we would never have been able to order.  They serve mostly fish dishes at the restaurants we’ve been to in Duino so far.  To be honest, I’m getting pretty tired of fish.  And shrimp with eyes still intact.  I had spaghetti, Mike had roast beef, and mom had grilled sole.  It was all delicious.  I don’t know what Andy and Spencer had.  I’ll blame that lapse on the view.  It was distracting.

Tomorrow, the festival students are putting on a concert at Castello di Duino, and we are going to that.  Then we plan to take the bus to Miramare, another castle that’s on the way to Trieste.  Lot’s more walking.  I hope the blisters I got today can handle it…    

Jenna