Venice, Italy

Last weekend, Hannah, Rachel, and I headed to Venice a bit earlier on Friday, because one of our classes was cancelled. We took a bus to the airport and were on our way to Venice from there!

We got into the airport at Treviso, which is outside of Venice, so we caught a bus to the area where our hotel was. Our hotel was not actually in Venice itself, but was on the mainland and only about 10 from Venice with the bus or train. 

We got to our hotel, and this is what we found:

It looked a little sketch, so we were a bit concerned. I had read good things about it, but I didn't know what to expect.

When we got inside, a little old Italian lady checked us in and showed us to our rooms. The rooms had a nice bathroom, three beds, and AIR CONDITIONING! Woo! Here was Hannah's bed. It was tucked inside a closet.

Hannah on her oddly placed bed!

It was hot all weekend! It felt like it got up to 100 degrees or so. Rachel got herself a soda, and had me take a picture for some reason!

 After checking in and dropping off our stuff, we set out with the train to Venice!

The first sight when you step out of the train station.

It was just beautiful!

Delicious pizza! I missed good pizza!

My camera is not very good at taking night pictures.

So many bridges. This one seemed a bit out of place, because it is so modern.

There is one of the boats that run like the buses... Boat taxis except you buy a pass instead of paying for individual trips.

 After getting dinner and walking around a bit, we headed back to the hotel. 

The next day, we were ready to go and spend a whole day in Venice! We just started by walking around. I think our goal was to reach San Marco on the other side of the island.

Here's the gondolier that offered to give me a free ride on the gondola. All I had to do was jump from the bridge. "Free ride?" "Free Jump". No thanks.

Every little canal had gondolas and very colorful buildings!

Way to take a picture at the worst time! Thanks Hannah or Rachel... not sure who was to blame here! Woops!

Take two.

The Grand Canal.

We bought day passes for the boats and the buses, so a lot of my pictures are from the water and therefore look very crooked.

Too. Many. Pigeons.

San Marco.

They had mask shops everywhere! Some were really pretty, others just plain creepy.

I just liked how the pigeon looked.

Gelato!

There were a lot of eagles made of glass in Venice. I took a moment to appreciate the sheer freedom and fury represented by the eagle.

Hannah bought a hat.

Oh Rachel.

The rules: No littering, No sitting or lying in St. Mark's Square, and no eating and drinking sitting down in St. Mark's Square. They had guards who would come up and yell at you to get up if you sat on the steps along the square.

We took a longer route around with the boat, and saw all the cruise ships docked there!

Royal Caribbean!

We went to one of the islands off of Venice, Murano. There they have a glass factory, so we stopped into several shops!

The sun started to set, and it made the pictures even better!

On the boat ride back, this was the reflection in the window of one of the docking stations. It was too perfect not to get a picture of it!

 The next day we walked to San Marco (St. Mark's Square) again. We went around the edge of the island and were there in no time.

This specific canal was a big gondola spot. A bunch of boats passed by with guys playing the accordion and singing. It was fun to watch.

Leaning tower of Venice perhaps?

The walk back, however, was a different story. It was like being trapped in an extra ring of Hell especially designed for us! It was so hot. We were all pretty sun burnt by this point, and the sun was beating down on us the entire walk back. We just kept zig-zagging through the old streets. After every turn there was another bridge to climb up and then down. It took about an hour and a half for us to find our way back. It was awful. By the time we got back to the main street, we were exhausted. We got dinner and tried to cool down. 

After dinner, we had to take a bus back (as the train was not running back to where we needed to go). From there, we picked up our luggage, and headed to the bus stop to catch the bus to take us back to the airport. When we got to the bus stop, we realized that there were no benches to wait on (just like how there were no benches anywhere in Venice) so we sat on folders or bags on the ground. While we were sitting (looking very American and touristy), a guy walked up to us and asked, "Are you vaiting fur bus to Slovania, maybe?" To this I just responded with a very confused "No". I don't know what about three very obviously American students gave him the idea that we were waiting for the bus to Slovania... but apparently we just give off that sort of vibe. The bus eventually came, and the temperature reading on the bus said 34 degrees Celsius (this was at about 6pm). We got to the airport no problem, but when we got there, the board said that our check in was closed, so I started to freak out a bit. We still had to check in, as we had no way of printing our boarding passes from the hotel. Eventually our check in counter came up and was opened up, so crisis averted there!

When we were finally assigned a gate, this is what it looked like.

Just a big open room. Apparently, benches or chairs would have been too much of a hassle...

The plane ride back wasn't too bad. Of course there's always turbulence when the drink cart comes out so that you can see the panicked looks on the flight attendants' faces. Real comforting. 

We got back to Stuttgart and took a bus back from there. It had been a really long day, and a very long and eventful weekend! I had so much fun, and I would love to go back some day!

Next weekend, Groningen. We'll see how this one goes. Instead of flying, I'm taking the train. The ride there is something like 11 hours or so. I may be stuck in a train station for a good two hours at like 2am on Friday.... we'll see!

Until next time!