At the top of my blog is the the quote, "Not all who wander are lost".  My weekend in Venice truly gave me a new understanding of what J.R.R. Tolkien meant.  Venice is a city where you can wander for hours, find new streets, new piazzas, and new canals, and never see the same place twice.  This is EXACTLY what Laura and I did for two days...I think we walked the entire island two or three times by the end of our time there.  We arrived on Friday morning with no map, and just started walking towards where we thought our hotel was.  After getting a little confused, we found where we were staying, a hotel called the Hotel Dalla Mora.

I'm going to take a moment now to tell my readers...if (and hopefully when) you all go to Venice, you MUST try and stay here.  It may only be a one star hotel, but it was one of the nicest, quaintest, and perfectly located places I have ever stayed.  WHEN I return to Venice, you can be sure I will be here again.  The owners were extremely helpful and nice, the accommodations were very nice, the croissants at breakfast were delicious, we had a beautiful view of the canal the hotel was located on, and it was unbelievably affordable.  So, we checked in, dropped our luggage off in our room and headed out into the city.


Before we left, we researched some cheap eats and came across this small restaurant called Trattoria Alle Due Gondolette.  In the description online, it said it was very hard to find, but worth it if you could- they were right on both counts.  We got very lost on our way there, but it was worth every extra minute it took to get there.  Not only did we get to explore a part of Venice one would normally not see, but we also had an AMAZING meal.  For 15 Euro, we had two courses and a half liter of wine.  For my primo piatti, I got spaghetti and calamari and for my secondo piatti, I ordered baccala, made three different ways, with polenta.  I had been waiting so long for good seafood, and it was worth the wait.  Again, when I come to Venice, I WILL be returning here for lunch.


After lunch, we stopped at a pasticceria we found on our way to the restaurant to get cenci, a traditional Carnevale dessert with which I happen to be obsessed (we go through two boxes a week at my homestay...so good), then started to head in the general direction of San Marco (the main Piazza in Venice).  Close to the restaurant was the Jewish Quarter of Venice, the "Ghetto Vecchio", so we decided to explore there a little.  I don't even know how to put my feeling about this into words.  As a history minor, I have studied WWII and the Holocaust for years, but actually seeing a real ghetto was truly eye opening.  We got to the main Piazza and there was still barbed wire on the tall brick walls.  In the grand scheme of this tragic period, the Venetian ghetto was only a small one, but, for me, it was unbelievable to see.  Everything I had ever studied, seen in movies, and read about in books was suddenly real.  It will be interesting to see the other quarters in the other cities I will be visiting in the next few months.


On our way, we explored lots of little alleyways and went into countless mask stores, looking for the perfect mask.  I ended up finding one, but, of course, it was 70 Euro and thus far too expensive.  As in love with it as I was, I just could not justify spending that much money.  The closer we got to San Marco, the more people we saw dressed up.  Everyone knows what the basic gist of Carnevale is, and what people do, but seeing these people in person absolutely takes your breath away.  These costumes are so beautifully elaborate, and must cost so much money and take so much time to create.

While there were many tourists along our way, we knew we were getting close to San Marco because the number multiplied by about ten.  We finally got to the square and it was just unreal.  There were so many spectators, and countless people dressed up.  It was an absolutely amazing sight.  In the Piazza is located St. Mark's Basilica.  I keep saying how every church I go into is the most beautiful church I've ever seen, but this one takes the crown for now.  No pictures were allowed, unfortunately, but believe me when I say it was stunning.  I wandered around in amazement until they told me I had to leave because they were closing.  The mosaics are so beautiful and the architecture is simply amazing.  This is the only really "touristy" thing we did this weekend, and I'm so happy we decided to go inside.


After wandering the Piazza and snapping pictures along the waterfront, we started heading back towards our hotel.  We were so exhausted and wanted to rest and figure out where we should go to eat.  Unfortunately, by the time we found our way back and looked up some restaurants, the time for aperitivi was over.  So, we decided to eat at the restaurant located directly next to our hotel.  The main dish I wanted in Venice was clams in a white wine sauce, and that's exactly what I got.  I got a GIANT bowl of mussles and clams, drenched in a delicious sauce, and I was in pure bliss.  After dinner, we went back to the room for a bit for a dessert of chocolate covered nuts (from the chocolate festival!) and waited for Laura's roommate and friends to call us to go out.  We met them in a nearby piazza and walked to "The Terminal".  It was a giant dance party that many of the young Venetian teens (and visiting students) go out at night.  It started off slow, but as the night progressed, the music and dancing got much better, and we ended up having an amazing time.


The next day we slept in a bit, but made sure we woke up in time for breakfast (which, as I said before, was wonderful).  After we ate and got ready, we made our way out again, with no real plan but to eventually make it to San Marco.  So, we spent the day wandering.  We found a small piazza that had a mini-chocolate festival (fulfilling my wish of every day being chocolate festival day) and I got a chocolate covered apple.  Since I couldn't find another mask, instead of wearing the one I already had, I decided to get my face painted.  The woman did a beautiful job using orange, yellow, and glitter (of course), and I felt like a little kid again...I'm not sure how many years its been since I had gotten my face painted!  We took a wrong turn to get to San Marco (we wanted to evade the crowds as much as possible) and ended up by the Basilica Santi Giovanni e Paolo, which was beautiful.  We snapped some pictures and made our way to San Marco.








When I said there were a lot of tourists on Friday, the amount that were there on Saturday was incomparable.  I don't think I have ever seen so many people in one place in my life.  We spent about an hour and a half there Saturday afternoon.  There was supposed to be a parade of the finalists of the costume competition, but for some reason it either never happened or it started so late that we had already left when it began.  There was an interesting show, however, and we saw a number done by a dozen or so women dressed as geishas.  The costumes of the people on Saturday blew the others out of the water.  There was one, in particular, on a woman who had a jeweled mask and a gorgeous teal colored costume, that I absolutely adored.  I couldn't help but creepishly take lots of pictures of her because I loved her costume so much!


Finally, we got to the point where we were ready to crawl because our feet hurt so much, so we made our way back to our hotel to rest before going out to dinner.  It took us FOREVER because of all of the people, and it was just terrible.  Note: do NOT wear flats while walking around Venice during Carnevale...it was the worst decision of the entire semester.  We finally got back (after about an hour of walking when it should have only taken about 15 minutes) and rested for a bit.  We got dinner in a nearby piazza at a place called Orange.  It was a cheap pizza dinner, but with how hungry we were, anything would have tasted wonderful.  Because our feet hurt so much and we were so tired, we decided to get dessert at a nearby gelateria and pasticceria and eat and lounge in our room for the night.  We went to bed early and then woke up early for another day of traveling and sight seeing.

Sunday morning, we woke up, ate breakfast, and left the hotel by 8:30 to catch a 8:50 train to Verona.  Romeo and Juliet is my all-time favorite play by Shakespeare, so I was VERY excited to see the city where it is.  We got into the city, and after unsuccessfully looking for a map, we decided to just take a picture of a giant map, and use the zoom on our camera view to find our way around (which surprisingly worked very well).  We started off at "La Tomba di Giulietta" (Juliet's tomb) where we bought a student pass for the tomb and museum and Juliet's house downtown.  After browsing the museum and tomb, we headed into the center to see the Arena.  There was a marathon downtown that day, which we didn't know, so there were, again, hoards of people.  It made it a bit hard to navigate, but ended up not being a big deal at all, and was pretty cool to watch!  The arena is the third largest structure of its kind, and was like a mini-Colosseum.  If we had more time, we definitely would have had explored the inside.


We then made our way to Juliet's house.  I was just overwhelmed with excitement.  Suddenly, the infamous balcony was towering above me, and the statue of Juliet was standing in front of me.  We took the mandatory picture of rubbing her breast for good luck, then headed inside to explore the house.  Basically, the house is a movie set from the original cinematic version of the play.  It was very cool to see where each of the different scenes (such as the masquerade, the balcony scene, the love scene, etc.) took place.


Coming to Verona, we were under the impression that you could write letters to Juliet and leave them in a wall outside of the house, thanks to the movie "Letters to Juliet".  We were SEVERELY mistaken, however.  You have two options: either write a letter on a computer or write a letter and stick it in a box (which is probably emptied and all the letters thrown out after a few days).  We did not want to do this, so we decided to find a Piazza to write our letters in and try and find a nearby building with a crack in the foundation to put them.  We came across the Piazza dei Signori, which features a statue of Dante in the center.  We thought it would be appropriate to write our letters at the feet of one of history's greatest writers.  We continued on our way and found the perfect place to put our letters.  I, of course, am not going to divulge where this location is...this is a secret only for me, Laura, and Juliet.  I can say, however, that it is safe from the elements, somewhere no one else will find, and somewhere we have a fantasy we can return to and find them someday.

After successfully leaving our letters, we continued to the Chiesa di Sant'Anastasia, to the Ponte Pietra, and eventually to the old Roman theater, built in 1 AD.  Yes, that was ONE AD, as in the first year of the modern calendar.  I have never been around anything so old in my life, and, being the history geek that I am, was basically overwhelmed with excitement and awe the entire time. We got tickets to enter the ruins (thank goodness for student discounts!), and explored them and the museum until we had to leave to make our way back to the train.  I honestly can't put my feelings towards it into words, except to say that it was just SO COOL.



We made our way back to the station, and started our journey back to Firenze.  Unfortunately, our weekend was at an end.  I can honestly say that this weekend was one of the best of my life, and I have decided that after college I am buying a boat to live on a canal in Venice.  Verona was amazing for the Shakespeare lover in me, and I would love to return during the summer, when the city's charm is at full force.  Venice, however, was just unbelievable. To think that such a place can exist is just unreal.  You see pictures of places and movies featuring them, but usually the real thing does not live up to your expectations.  Venice, however, does that and more.  It is truly unique, and beautiful, and magical.  Even though I didn't see the Thief Lord like I had hoped, I could give up every trip I have coming up for the rest of the semester, spend all the rest of my weekends in Venice, and be perfectly happy the entire time.  It is officially my absolute favorite place on earth and this will be a weekend I will never forget.

Abbracci e Baci!! xoxo

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