venturing to venice

January 21, 2018

venturing to venice

Over the weekend, my program and I went to Venice. Venice is one of those places that has a mystical quality to it, I've always heard and seen so many photos of it, so I was looking forward to seeing if it lived up to all the talk.

We arrived by lunchtime on Friday and quickly set off looking for Birraria La Corte. I was lucky, a friend from elementary school had studied in Venice for a semester so she gave me a list of places to try. The restaurant was definitely off the beaten path and we walked into an empty piazza (something I don't think I will ever see in Rome) to find it nestled in the corner. We were all ravenous and quickly ordered, let me just say the food was amazing. One of my favorite places I have eaten, thus far and I'm sad that I was only able to eat there once because there was so much on the menu I wanted to try.
After lunch, we walked around before going to Ca'Macana, which is one of the oldest Venetian mask makers. We had the opportunity to watch one of the mask-makers in work and learn some of their techniques. It was fascinating to hear about the history behind them. This mask workshop also made all the masks for the Stanley Kubrick film Eyes Wide Shut (which I am going to try and watch). I also was able to pick one up for myself, so if anyone needs a date for a masked ball, I'm available and ready!

Saturday morning, we got up and hopped on a boat to see Murano and Burano. They are smaller islands near Venice, and the boat ride was about 45 minutes. Murano is famous for its glass and we went to one of the glassmakers workshops to watch how they work. The glassmakers typically train for 15 years and then certain ones are chosen as leaders for their artistic ability and creativity, while others will remain assistants. I went to their store and picked out an ornament as a token for my family...haven't checked to see if it made it back in one piece.

We then headed to Burano, where we were able to see these colorful little houses that are incredibly picturesque. While Burano is beautiful, there isn't much to do on the island and none of the restaurants were that yummy.

When we got back to Venice, we went to the top of the St. Mark's Campanile for the most spectacular view of Venice.

After I decided to explore the Doge Palace. The Doge was the ruler of Venice and the palace not only housed all the government buildings, but also his personal apartment. In the palace is one of the largest rooms in Europe from that time period. The palace was ornate and gives Versailles a run for its money.

Today I woke up and ended to the Peggy Guggenheim museum. I had done some research about Peggy Guggenheim and am captivated by her life story.

Overall, Venice is beautiful and I highly recommend visiting, but found two days to be the perfect amount of time. While I was there, I learned that very few people live there because they can make more money by renting their house on AirBnB and that the majority of the population is comprised of students at the University of Venice. I also was a bit saddened by how much the island caters to tourists with stores like Sephora and Lush. January is the off-season for them so many shops were closed, but I appreciated this because there were less tourists.