The drive down to Venice was about
six hours which wasn’t too bad. Italy has the prettiest countryside I’ve ever
seen with vineyards and mountains everywhere. Our bus driver is crazy the way
he takes the turns around the mountains, so it’s pretty tough to sleep on the
bus.
When we got to Venice, we weren’t
allowed to take the bus onto the island so we had to stop and take the metro
bridge called the “people mover” across the river. Then we had to haul our
luggage about 1/3 of a mile over bridges and cobblestone streets to get to the
hotel. It took about an hour just to get there. The hotel is pretty bad – I
think it’s a one star and our room smells really bad because of something in
the bathroom. My first impression of Venice isn’t very good – it seems very
crowded and dirty with not much to do except spend money. It’s not a very
practical city; almost everything is either a sit-down restaurant or an expensive
shop. There are no laundromats, grocery stores, post offices, or anything. So
I’ll probably have to wait for Vienna to do laundry, which is bad because I’ve
run out of clean clothes. Ryan and I hauled our suitcases to a Laundromat just
to find out that it had closed and been replaced by a fashion store. There are
tons of different types of people here, but everyone seems to be pretty
wealthy. There are also hundreds of street salesmen who get really annoying
when trying to sell you knock off purses and souvenirs. On the first day, we
didn’t really do anything except walk around the city and have our welcome
dinner (lasagna again). Everybody was busy studying for the art test and
finishing the two papers due on Saturday.
On the second day, we had our art
exam and then music class until 12:00. Then we took the vaperetto, or water
bus, down to the Accademia for an art museum tour. This was actually a really
good museum with lots of Venetian Baroque works. After the museum, we picked up
lunch and went to St. Marco Square (the tuna in Italy is really good). Then we
transferred to a different water bus to get to the island of Murano, which is
famous as being the best glass blowing region in the world. We saw a
demonstration of a guy blowing a glass vase, but there wasn’t much to do
besides that. We wandered around the shops and went in the glass art gallery.
There were some really pretty pieces there that ranged from $100 - $80,000
each. It was just a massive gallery of nothing but glass.
Then we took the bus back to our
hotel and got kabobs for dinner. At night, all 50 people in our group went to a
casino. Not many people made out too well – blackjack killed everybody. One kid
made 220 euro but others lost 100, 120, or even 160. I ended up losing 60
playing blackjack and roulette but it was probably worth the entertainment
(Ryan and I did much better in roulette than blackjack). One of our group leaders,
Darryl, must have lost at least 500 euro because he was there for 8 hours. Pretty
much everyone is looking for the cheapest meals possible now.
On the next morning, Ryan and I
walked to the Guggenheim museum because we didn’t want to take the bus. The
water buses here are cool until you actually ride one when it’s really slow and
everyone is packed in like sardines. It takes about an hour to get down the
Grand Canal. So we walked but got lost a few times because the streets of
Venice are so confusing and divided by water. We ran into dead ends at least 5
times because the streets weren’t on the map. Literally the whole city of
Venice is the exact same – the streets look the same and there are only
identical shops and restaurants even in the more residential areas. But we made
it to the museum, took a tour of the contemporary exhibit, and then went to St.
Marco’s Square for a walking tour. On the way, we also saw the Rialto Bridge
and the Bridge of Sighs (called that because that was the transfer point for
prisoners into the maximum security prison long ago). The walking tour took us
by St. Mark’s Basilica and the bell tower. The Basilica was huge with
architecture from the Byzantine Empire, but we didn’t go in because it cost a
good bit of money. There are winged lions located all over the city because St.
Mark is the patron saint of Venice. The Square was extremely crowded with
thousands of pigeons, but I got cookies and cream and caramel gelato afterward.
After the walking tour, we went to
get a sit down pizza lunch then had an hour water bus ride back to the hotel.
Then we found a Laundromat in the afternoon before going to the concerto at St.
Vidal Church at night. The orchestral concerto was in an old church with about
150 people in the audience. The group had 3 violinist, two violas, a bassist, a
cellist, and a harpsichord player. They played the Four Seasons by Vivaldi (one
of my favorite songs), a dual violin solo piece by Vivaldi, and a few works by
Handel. They were extremely good, especially the cellist and violin soloists,
but the church was almost too big for their little group. I loved it - it was
an awesome show. The performance was near perfect and we had pretty good seats.
After the last song, they bowed and left then came back for an encore. Their
last song was an incredible cello solo with the cellist in the middle. The
cellist was all over the place – moving his head, twisting his body, shaking
his hair, etc. – he thought he was a rockstar or something. After the show, the
players came out to take a group picture with all of us. Then we left and some
people went to the casino. I went and just watched people play blackjack and
tested how well I could keep up with card counting…it was actually really easy
but it wouldn’t help because the dealers were rotating 8 decks.
On the last day in Venice, we left
at 8am to go to Pruva which is west of Venice. It was about an hour train ride
to this small town. Here, we saw the Arena Chapel and St. Antonio’s Basilica.
We got an art lecture before going into the Arena Chapel, which is now a
museum. It was painted by Giotto and sculpted by Pisano in two years in the
1400s. The paintings were old fashioned but still really good (they’ve had so
much damage, they had to be restored many times). The walls depict a pictorial
representation of the Bible – from the Madonna not being able to have children,
to the birth, to the death, and the resurrection. In all, it’s maybe 25-30 very
easy to understand paintings. Then above the entrance door Giotto painted
Judgment Day with heaven and hell on the left and right. The guy who funded the
building of the Chapel, Sciggotti (or something like that) is shown on the heaven
side offering his Chapel to the angels. He actually built the Chapel to save
his father’s soul from hell after his father had died (his dad is referenced in
Dante’s inferno as a usurer in hell – back then he was known as a very sinful
loan shark). Sciggotti also wanted to ensure hos pwn admittance into heaven
because he had also practiced greed in charging high interest for loans. My art
teacher loved being in the Chapel because she took a whole class only on the
art in that Chapel.
Then we walked to St. Antonio’s
Basilica and got a lecture about the general’s statue in front of the church. I
went in with some guys. It was a huge church with at least 20 side chapels –
pretty similar to the others we’ve seen but this one was more Baroque in style
(emotional paintings, active projecting sculptures, lots of decoration). It was
really beautiful, and Ryan and I touched the tomb of St. Antonio, just cause it
seemed like all the locals were doing it.
After the church, we got kabobs and
walked back to the train station. On the way back, we ran into a
bachelor/bachelorette party that made Ryan participate and ask some questions
to the bride (who was really drunk). I guess that’s a tradition in Italy or
something, everyone was just laughing and making fun of the bride. And she was
covered in flour, ketchup, mustard, paint, etc. It was funny but really weird.
When we got back to Venice, most of
our group took a boat to Lido, which is an island to the south of Venice. Here
we went to the only beach in Venice, which was actually pretty nice and about
two miles long. We bought a volleyball and played beach volleyball for about 4
hours. It was great to do something active besides walking, and our team
actually turned out to be really good. A group of Italians challenged us a few
times for the court and we won every “shorts vs. speedos” match. They were good
sports but pretty creepy with the girls. We took the water bus back around 8:30
to pack and shower before bed.
Overall, I really didn’t like
Venice, and I doubt I’d ever want to go back. It was always really crowded, and
all the salesmen and restaurant owners got really annoying. There’s not much to
do except eat and walk around, and the walking gets really repetitive after a
while. I was really glad to go to the beach one day to get out of the city. The
only major things to see are St. Mark’s Basilica, Murano, and Burano (known for
its lace making) but even these weren’t that impressive. Venice looks good in
the pictures and from afar, but once you’re there it’s pretty expensive,
annoying, and dirty.
You
know you’re in Venice when:
- There are just as many canals as roads – you can take a water taxi anywhere.
- It smells like fish or sewage. There’s no grass anywhere.
- Gondolas are all over the canals.
- All you can find are restaurants and shops.
- Cars aren’t allowed on the island.
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