The weekend started on Thursday with a nice train ride up to Venice. It is a little more than a four hour ride, so we got some reading in a took a little nap to catch up on our lack of sleep. When we finally arrived in Venice I thought I was in Disneyland but I had no idea what was to come. It was like we stepped right into the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. We got on a Vaparetto, pretty much the Venice equivalent of a bus but on the water, and took it to our hotel. We stayed at a fabulous little hotel, Hotel Campiello, just two blocks from St. Mark's Square. When we finally made it to the hotel, we dropped our bags and headed out to get a bite to eat. The three of us were on a mission to find good seafood and we were successful. We found a little place in San Marco with great clam and mussel pasta. After dinner we grabbed a bottle of wine and headed back to our hotel. We ended up drinking our wine with our professor and her husband who were coincidentally staying the same hotel. After our late night happy hour, the three of us decided to go out on the town in Venice. Unfortunately, Venice is a rather sleepy little town most of the time. So we wandered and eventually wandered back to our hotel.
On Friday we woke up early, indulged in the free breakfast at our hotel and headed out to do some site seeing. It was an absolutely gorgeous day in Venice. We went up to the top of the Campanile and then into the Doge's Palace and then just hung out in St. Mark's Square. The area was full of people dressed up in amazing costumes. We spent the rest of the day walking around and taking in the sites of Venice. And we finished our day with a fabulous sunset gondola ride.
Saturday was the big day...Carnivale! The streets were absolutely packed, you could barely move. And EVERYONE was dressed up in costumes. There were some of the most magnificent costumes I have ever seen. Anything and everything. We spent the day wandering around and picking out some Murano glass and we all bought masks to wear out that evening. We stopped for some lunch at a little pizza place and the waiter seemed to like us a lot. So we asked him what we should do for Carnivale that night. He told us to meet him back here later and he would show us around. So we went on with the rest of the day and met up with him later that night. And Carnivale isn't just one place or one bar, it is the entire city. I can't even describe it. People were walking around town with bottles in their hands. Throwing the bottles when they were finished. The ground was littered with glass and confetti. We walked around with our new friend and had a great time. We saw fireworks, crazy people, and of course the most amazing costumes.
I still can't put everything I saw into words. It was just unreal. But an amazing thing to experience. Venice is an amazing city. It was really nice to be out of Rome and away from the city with all the cars.
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