Hello! How I've missed you all. Sorry for being so lazy/forgetful, but I have finally written my Venice post from when I went there with Eren in early April. It was a very magical trip, and I absolutely loved it there so I really should have been more inspired to write about it, but I guess I was so overwhelmed by all that happened, I didn't know what to write first.
Going to Venice was a dream come true. Plane trip was uneventful, although we did get dry, crappy breadsticks and flew over the Alps. I didn't realize before how many mountains there were (way more than you might think, over 20 minutes of flying over them!!), and there are so many small villages nestled in the mountains! I wonder how life is there?
After getting to the airport, we got tickets from an unfriendly woman for a ferry to cross to the main island. Wasn't like the €100 each private boat trip I was expecting! Waiting for the boat on the pier with other people while the sun was going down over the water was beautiful. By the time we got on our boat, it got pretty dark. It took over an hour to get to our San Marco dock. With the help of our Google maps printout, asking someone in Hotel Serenissima (swanky!) and walking up and down deserted, echoey Venice streets, we eventually found our hotel hidden around a corner by a river side (with a scary unmoving beggar with his arms held out and his head down...) .
The Hotel Corte Grimani where we stayed was quite nice. The inside lobby area stank, but apparently that's really common. The old guy behind the counter who looked like Santos from Minna No Nihongo, took 20 minutes to explain to us the Venice map and gave us suggestions and stories of what to do/see. After grabbing a free internet access code, we went up to our room in the tiny elevator. Our room was room 302, so it was meant to be! We were starving because we hadn't eaten all day, and there wasn't any room service. I found hotel paper though and drew Ezio on it with miscellaneous HAI VENEZIA! messages on it. There was free water and cookies, so we partook in that, then took in some internet and went to sleep.
Got up the next day pretty early. The view and sounds outside our window were fantastic, and there was even a pigeon coop on the roof across from us. (Assassin's Creed much?) So we quickly got ready and departed. We wanted to shop, get lost in the maze of streets and explore everywhere, but first we were starving! Let me tell you something first, our Venice map got lots of wear out of it! It was quite easy navigating to the larger area because of the Per San Marco and Per Rialto signs everywhere on the buildings.
We went to a place called MR. SANDWICH for breakfast near the Rialto Bridge, and had a wonderful toasted sandwich with a cappuccino, and I normally don't like coffee but this tasted incredibly delightful. We were served by a really friendly Italian man that didn't mind that Eren couldn't pronounce Macchiato. Bahaha!
After breakfast we explored a bit down the streets, crowded with tourists and tourist trappings stalls. I went into a Murano glass shop run by a cool girl listening to ska music. I bought a red and black Murano glass snail and told her I would be back on Sunday to shop more. We happened to find a Lush in the hidden shops under all the old stone awnings, which I had to check out. Going through the rest of the alleyways, we cam across some great shops, ones with a lot of masks, Murano... you can tell it wa sa very touristy place. I found a great artistic dress in a shop run by a chinese lady (and later the zipper broke, sads. Need to get it fixed). We also got some sweets from one of the many bakeries and sweet shops scattered around (meringue cookies and melon rope, because I got addicted to the stuff thanks to Sweden).
We happily started a 3-a-day gelato taste test. Gelato was only 1 euro per scoop, so we tried as much as we could. Gelato is like ice cream, except way thicker, creamier and with incredible amounts of flavour. Flavours tried included Lemon, White Chocolate, Nutella, Extreme Chocolate, Strawberry, Kinder Surprise.. can't remember the rest. But most of them were nommy.
We checked out some of the amazing buildings and cathedrals scattered around, and made sure to take a couple of nerdy photos of us trying to climb some pillars a la Ezio. We had a late lunch at a fantastic restaurant on the first day. I had a fresh creamy ham sauce tortellini dish, while Eren had an artichoke, cheese, ham and mushroom pizza which was also tasty. I partook in the breadsticks and white house wine, which was divine, and cheap! Really satisfying meal.
We walked quite far all around the city, and discovered the Piazza Roma which is where all the cars/busses/trains drop all the people off because they can't go into the city. They had a newer bridge built over the water that was really modern and neat to cross over. There were some small posters put up in an area of construction that had a cracked out Snail on it that reminded me of Sausage the Snail. I was delighted. :D
Seeing all the Gondoliers float in their gondolas and go under bridges with people was so cool, they had their stripey shirts and awesome straw hats n' everything. Just like you'd expect! Some of them even sang/whistled.
We ate the meringue cookies at the waterside by the Rialto bridge and watched the gondoliers go by. We saw the seagulls flying around trying to get a bit of food action from people. We closely inspected the water in the canals (without getting too close) and summarized that is definitely pure AIDS. It smelled like the bathroom from Trainspotting. Oh well, the view was nice.
During the day, the lineups to get into St. Marco cathedral were huge, so we didn't bother going inside. There was lots of really cool things to see on the outside, anyway. Saturday night in St. Marco square there was a live band (bass, violin, clarinet, accordion) that played beautiful songs and even the Tetris song! I got some crappy video of it on my phone. Lights at night on the canals were creepy but hauntingly pretty. Night walking in St. Marco square was lovely! The architecture in this area is incredible, with the long row of pillared buildings and the ornate Torre D'Orlogio (clock tower) sitting adjacent to the San Marco Cathedral, when walking under it is quite neat.
On Sunday we walked all over Venice trying to find all the glyph locations from Assassin's Creed 2 (there are 6 locations, but one doesn't exist anymore because it was..well, a thieves guild. Haha) and taking pictures/video of each one. Before we left our hotel on Sunday we scoured the internet for an hour trying to find a proper old map from AC2 that showed us where the glyph locations were supposed to be. Translating it to the new map we had was a bit hard because even though it's very similar, it was definitely shrunk down for the game.
• Gilda dei Ladri di Venezia (this is the thieves guild location that didn't exist.. haha)
• San Giacomo di Rialto
• Ponte di Rialto Rialto Bridge
• Scuola Grande di San Marco
• Torre Dell'Orologio Clock Tower
• Campanile di San Marco
• San Pietro di Castello To the very very east of Venice where no one was!
At one of the locations at the far east, where we found the San Pietro di Castello, we were sitting on a bench and we saw a bunch of people on the large bridge going across one of the canals, and they were all wearing a different colour jacket. The funny thing was, most of them weren't together. Rainbow people! :D Also there were barely any people over on this side, so it was really quiet and quite beautiful. We had to cross 7 bridges to get to this place, one of the bridges being the "Lovers Bridge". There is a story behind it and you're supposed to kiss a loved one after you cross the bridge. So adorable!
Getting to this part in the east we walked down a street where mostly the locals were out and about, and there was some sort of flea market display in the streets that had some interesting items. We got some gelato and explored the nearby garden which had a fantastic statue/fountain and a really nice walking path that sheltered us from the sun. We got to the edge of the water and walked all the way up, admiring the skyline of beautiful Venice with all the boats going to and from the docks. On the way in the water, we saw a bizarre drowned woman statue covered in seaweed. We also angered a local gazebo.
During our shopping adventures, we saw a lot of really neat things. Like cybernetic masks instead of the normal Carnivale masks. We also found a small dragon and eclectic figure store where Eren got a little dragon figure. Also went back to Murano shop run by cool ska girl, and bought lotsa neat things and presents! I wanted to go mask hunting to find the perfect mask for me and a Plague Doctor mask for Kody. Another shop we saw had amazing Greek God statues in the window. I wanted the Lady Justice and Zeus ones but they would have been too huge to carry back. Also to my delight and surprise, I found out that Lupin the 3rd is very popular in Italy, as I saw lots of Lupin merchandise and clothing at random stores. I got a really awesome purple and green Lupin shirt with fuzzy black designs!
Caffe del Doge was amazing. Spent 17 euros in there. That's where I had the best hot chocolate I've ever had. It was pure chocolate with cinnamon sprinkled on top. Exquisite.
Found an amazing mask shop that did huge masks of cartoons/people, like the Joker, Simpsons, the Hulk, etc. and sold Italian manga!
Steph asked me to try to find a spiral/shell design necklace charm she lost, and we searched everywhere in most Murano shops but we could not find what she described. Apparently there was only one shop that sold them though (and there was a lot of Murano shops.) I did buy her a cool pendant though.
On Monday before we left, we decided to partake in one of the 80 Euro Gondola rides. It was about 30 minutes and it was really lovely. Our Gondolier was secretly Ezio, we think. He showed us some really old buildlings, like the Marco Polo building and some really old marble buildings from the 1400's. He took us to where we were looking out over the water on Saturday eating meringues. It was cool to see it from the other side on the water! We even got in a mini traffic jam on the water, which was cool, haha. And there was this old Gondolier with the coolest mustache! He was a bro. This was a really nice way to end the Venice trip, I think, even if it was an expensive one!
FINAL THOUGHTS!
Walking over so many bridges was really cool. Gorgeous city, old buildings, quite friendly people, the streets were very narrow and so crowded with tourists, it was sometimes very hard to get past. Apparently less than 1% of tourists actually take time to see the gorgeous sights and buildings. How sad! We made sure to see as much as we could, chased pigeons, fought our way through crowds, had lots of candy, gelato and expensive delicious foods. Our bed was very comfy and our bathroom had a bidet. Haha. The Hotel Corte Grimani was clean and very nice. Staff was nice too. Ferry ride back was fun and crowded. People got splashed by the water!
I was a bit worried at airport security that I wouldn't be able to take everything because I had like 5 carry on bags, but I guess they're used to it. Had shitty breadsticks on the plane ride back, too! Was uneventful and we got back safe and sound. Venice was amazing, A+++ would visit again many many times!
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Foods we tried:
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Toasted sandwiches
Super Expensive crab (that was just a small pile of crab with bits of shell in it on some lettuce.. :| )
Beef Goulash noodles
Lemon Pana Cotta with Raspberry sauce (this was EXTRA NICE)
Smoked Salmon Penne
Random pizza
Lots of wine
The BEST hot chocolate
Croissants
Spinach and Cheese pastry
Fruit Milkshake
Many delicious sandwiches on Monday, like my fav. Cream cheese and ham with no crust. DIVINE!
Random bakery cookies and pastries
I have a crapload of photos from Venice, you can see my photo album here if you haven't seen any my photos already! http://www.flickr.com/photos/43711291@N02/sets/72157623803323554/ GO SEE GO SEE!
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