Venice II

2/8/15

Day 23

If you told me last semester that I would be the one leading the charge on setting the alarms to 6:30 am, I would have LAUGHED IN YOUR FACE. But sadly, that day has arrived. I was the instigator. I had a healthy breakfast of windowsill-refrigerated pizza (cheapness at its finest) and dressed in not only the clothes I brought for today but also everything I wore yesterday. And you know what? I was warm! Except my fingers, which I needed out to take pictures :) 

The noticeably smaller group of us (I could only convince a few of the craziest people to wake up early enough) made our way as quickly as possible across town, limiting our stops on every single bridge we crossed. The plan was to make it to the Rialto in time to watch the sunrise, which we had googled. We made it there exactly on time, only to discover that the buildings block the view.

Apparently the best place to watch the sunrise is Saint Mark's Square- which we'd passed through to get to the Rialto. Tired and defeated, we walked back in the direction we'd come. Venice was still a ghost town until maybe around 8- they must need a full 12 hours of sleep.

In the Square, I couldn't get over the Doge's Palace and something about it makes it hard to photograph well= I obsessively took a ton of pictures. As we stood there, it began to show signs of life and then a parade came through!

After awhile, we started to get hungry and we'd been craving good cannolis so that was the mission. We were very successful.

By now, we know the trick is to stand and eat because "tavola" (table) is a way to charge the tourists extra than "banco" (at the counter). 

Satisfied, my friends went back to the hostel to make up for lost sleep. But I had a few more things on my list and wasn't about to waste even one second of my time here, so I continued on my way, armed with a camera and a lot of layers.

The Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo was of course closed for renovations like everything else (the Trevi fountain, the Baptistry in Florence) so I couldn't climb them but I could stand there and see them in person. I'm still undecided on if it met my expectations, but they were beautiful. I also had read somewhere that crossing the Bridge of Sighs was free so I investigated that but it turned out to be a lie.

There were two more buildings that I really wanted to see for their architecture but they were far and I had to check out of the hostel by 10:30 am. It's probably not worth going back to Venice while I'm here just to see two buildings that I can see online but I can't get the idea of them out of my head. I've fallen in love the architecture and the bridges/water in Venice. And I should take advantage of it while I'm so close, right?!

Sadly, my pictures didn't turn out very well. It was kind of disheartening because the winter light just doesn't look good in a place that you think of as warm. And all the plants die for the winter so the there's no green sign of life and buildings look kind of bare. When I was here before, I took this shot and it looks to me like I'd imagine paradise. Without the plants, how can winter Venice compete with summer Venice? On top of that, when we were walking through the streets, I'm usually trying to keep up with the group and not get lost. Plus I was cold, tired, and hungry and wanted to walk quickly. But it's almost impossible to keep the camera on manual and adjust it until you get the perfect shot if you're moving too fast. So in the end, I just gave up put it all on auto. 

We had time to kill before we caught our train, so we took the long way to the station and stopped to shop along the way. Then, my friends all got Burger King for breakfast and like the McDonald's, it was pretty fancy compared to American fast food. Sitting down to eat more of my pizza, I noticed how efficiently packed I was. When I had the space to spread out, all the little stuff I was carrying came out onto the table and filled it up, but as soon as we were ready to go, it just disappeared. The wallet went back into the sneaky pocket, the camera went back on my neck, the pizza went back into the backpack, and we left. 

It's weird to think that everyone is here to leave. This city will have an entirely different population tomorrow. And it's also interesting that generations later, were still doing "The Grand Tour"- we just call it study abroad or Erasmus or backpacking.