It's like Travel Tuesday...but on a Wednesday

I missed Travel Tuesday yesterday, but it's still here, just a couple of hours late :)

Today we travel to Venice (or Venezia to the Italians) and with that we make our way into ITALY. Oh Italy how I loved you and your glorious food! The food in Italy is everything they say it is, and more. We stopped at the first petrol station in Italy and I almost died...Panini's (which are my favourite food in the world) EVERYWHERE and with amazing fillings like fresh Mozarella, rocket and carpaccio, even just the tomato and Mozarella one's were to die for. I could have eaten my body weight in food every day!

We were in Italy for longer than any of the other countries (4 days) so generally when I talk about the trip people get the impression that I loved Italy the most, but it's not necessarily true because if we had spent more time in the other countries I probably would have loved them just as much.

Venice - what to say about Venice.

I feel that Venice is perceived to be an overrated city, when in actual fact it isn't. Everyone knows what to expect in Venice - Gondola's, canals, picturesque postcard alleyways - and it is all that, but there is something about it that keeps making me feel like I want to go back there. I loved it, it was so beautiful and different and I will always remember it and its Italian beauty. 

This dizzy warm glow that I have whenever I think of Venice might also have to do with the fact that immediately upon arrival in Venice we went on a short Gondola ride (30 mins) where we drank 4 bottles of champagne between 6 of us. That definitely got us into a cheerful mood. After the Gondola we went to see a glass blowing demonstration. Venice is famous for its Murano glass, Murano is an island off the main island of Venice where they make most of the Venetian glass but there are a lot of glass showrooms in Venice itself for the tourists who want to see the glass, but not travel all the way out to Murano.

The rest of the day we had free time to do whatever we wanted to before our dinner that evening. We first went into St. Mark's Basillica in Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's square). This was the most breathtaking and beautiful place I have seen in my life. I wasn't allowed to take photos inside but I'm actually glad about that because it meant I could just look at it all and take it it. The entire church roof is covered with tiny gold mosaic tiles and the floor is an amazing mosaic. Because Venice is built on mud and water the ground has been continuously moving under the building for centuries. The floor in the Basilica (which is also the lowest point in Venice and therefore floods most often) is so uneven that you could easily trip if you are not watching where you are going. This church astounded me because it is so magnificent in scale and decoration, and then at the same time so fragile in that it is (still) standing on ever moving ground. St Peter's Basilica in Rome was unbelievable because of the scale, but St Mark's was simply beautiful. 

My sister and I then decided to go to the Peggy Guggenheim museum. If you love Modern Art and you are ever in Venice then this is a must. It was such an awesome museum. What is now the museum was originally her house and her own private art collection but she left it all to the Venetians on the condition that they keep the collection together and transform the house into a museum. We had come to this museum particularly to see the Jackson Pollock paintings, but it is filled with tons of other interesting works. It also has pictures of the house when she was living in it which I found very interesting. The museum shop was amazing. They had so many cool, designer things in it. I really enjoyed that because even though the art in the museum is from the mid 1900's they have stayed true to the concept of the art and the spirit in which she collected it. The more I learn about this woman the more I love her, she was so interesting and did so much for the Modern Art movement that I truly admire her. My sister bought a very cool Piet Mondrian mug there and I bought a Miffy book. 

Venice is basically a maze. We had a map but all it does is kind of give you an idea as to how far apart things are and the general area they are in, to find them you have to follow these (above) signs on the buildings. There are generally signs to San Marco (the main square), All Accademia (a museum) and Rialto (a bridge) which form a triangle across the city so you just follow the signs to whichever one is closest to where you hope to go. After getting lost a couple of times on the way to the Peggy Guggenheim museum which was near Accademia we also realised that there are only signs when you need to turn somewhere, so you just sort of follow the crowd in a generally straight direction and then turn to wherever the sign is pointing.

Venice is also really old and pretty much sinking into the ground, so there is construction work happening everywhere. You can see a lot of it in the photos and it can't be avoided. You would be lucky to get photos without and canvas covered buildings in them. If the perspective looks wrong and the buildings look skew and weird in some of these photos, its probably because they are skew and falling over in real life.

For the rest of the day we wondered around Venice and just took it all in. That night we met up with the Contiki group again to go for dinner. Little did we know how much food was being prepared for us in that little restaurant. In Venice we had our first taste of Italian dinner...meal after meal after meal came out of that kitchen and we ate until we rolled back out onto the streets of Venice.


We left Venice after dinner that night and as we walked out of Piazza San Marco we looked back and said Arrivederci to a sight that hasn't changed in the last 2000 years.