Ciao, Venezia!

I just returned from an overnight stay in Venice, for the opening night of Carnevale 2008, the  of giant celebration before the beginning of Lent!  Before I begin, let me preface this entry by saying that upon arrival in Venice on Friday afternoon, we promptly learned that Carnevale 2008 had been postponed due to the accidental deaths of 2 workers on the set-up committee. I don't have any further details about what happened but apparently there was some sort of accident, and the Mayor of Venice proclaimed a "lutto cittadina" (citizens' mourning) for the two men and delayed all the public events scheduled for Friday and Saturday. Therefore, alas, no Carnevale :(

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HOWEVER, despite the lack of masked celebrations, the trip to Venice was a great time. Everything about it was backwards and wrong, but I loved it nonetheless. The madness started in Milan when there was a one-day pre-announced public transportation strike on Friday. This made it quite an adventure to get to the train station, especially when we got out of class at 1 and our train was at 1:55! But, this being Italy, a "strike" actually turned out to be a sort of lessening of services. Two of the three metro lines were working (although only to certain stops and infrequently), so in order to avoid the raging traffic on the surface, we made our way, slowly but surely, on the metro. Gotta love those italians, right?

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The train ride was surprisingly pleasant, and we got to see a the pretty northern italian countryside. (yay! something went right!)

Shortly before arriving, we found out that our hostel had a midnight curfew and was, in fact, on an island separated from the main city, which cannot be reached after the ferries stop running at about 9. SO, we got a new hotel in a great location off the Piazza San Marco, and then had to sneak 7 people into one double room without the inquisitive concierge finding out. This was an adventure, believe me.

Coming from Milan where there are relatively VERY few tourists except by the Duomo/La Scala, and everyone speaks italian all the time, Venice was completely different. It is a tourist MECCA. Everything's catered to tourists, written in 6 languages, and WAY overpriced. Normally, I would be t urned off by this, but the city is so damn charming, I couldn't help but love it! I totally understand why people come from all over the word to enjoy this place, with or without Carnevale.

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Dinner was pretty tasteless, coffee was €4, there were roughly 4 bars open attempting to accomodate the wandering Carnevale late-night crowds, who spilled out into the piazzas in the freezing weather, and everything closed at 1AM at the latest. For future reference, there is a reason Venice is not known for its nightlife!

But honestly, despite all the complaining I just did, we still had a great time on the trip, and got to see some BEAUTIFUL sights. Saturday morning we took a few rides on the vaporetto (water bus) around the grand canal (our version of a very-expensive gondola ride), went to the Scuola Grande of San Rocco (beautiful old palace that housed some GORGEOUS Tintoretto paintings covering the walls and ceilings. Tintoretto was an artist working in the late 1500s, who took over 20 years to complete all the walls and ceilings in this building.) and the "Ca' D'Oro" - House of Gold, which is a great little art museum off the beaten track, with hundreds of mostly religious sculptures and paintings, and a balcony with an unbeatable view of the Grand Canal.

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We got back on the bus at 2:30 and were home by 5. We may have missed Carnevale, but we still had an unforgettable time.

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