Dressed up Douchebags
Trip Start
May 01, 2007
1
62
80
Trip End
Ongoing
Venice,
Italy
Sunday, February 3, 2008
We had no idea how to get a train from La Spezia (right near Riomaggiore) to Venice. All we knew was that we couldn't do it direct. I thought it was going to be stressful, getting on the right trains, finding connections, having the right ticket etc. After all, it is a nightmare in the UK at the best of times, and they speak English
01 - Venetian Mask Shop
! However, all my worries were thrown at the window as an extremely helpful man in the info booth gave us a fantastic description on how to get there, which ticket to get, and even a backup plan if trains are running late. What a great bloke! So we made it to Venice just fine. It was a great journey through some fantastic landscapes, plus a couple of changes at Bologna and Parma.The weather was getting worse and worse as we headed east and by the time we arrived in Venice, it was grey, drizzly, and quite unpleasant. Nonetheless we were excited to be in Venice. It was amazing to see Grand Canal and all it's activity as soon as we stepped out of the train station. Umbrellas up and street map out, me navigated through some confusing 'streets' to find our hostel. It had been a long train journey and was late afternoon before we finally got to our room. I had a nice chat with the guy who checked us in about Malta! After a rest we headed out, and I bought a new card for my camera. I did not want to lose any more photos like I had over the last week! Soon we were on way down the main streets of Venice on our way to St Marks Square. It felt like all the crowds of people (mostly tourists), were headed there. We saw more and more people dressed up for Carnavale as we got closer to St Marks Square and decided we need to join in with the festival buy purchasing a mask from one of the hundreds of mask shops in Venice. Most were stalls on the street, so there was plenty to choose from, although making a decision was difficult! After a wee while we found some suitable masks and bore them on our faces as we headed further into the hords of people.
At St Marks Square they had a stage and some enterntainment, a bit of loud eurodance sort of music, and plenty to drink
02 - Me and Stace at Carnevale (I think!)
! So it was a pretty cool party. The atmosphere was great, and they had lit up the square beautifully - especially St Marks Cathedral. We had a few drinks and a few mulled wines to warm us up. After a while we began to head back to the hotel, which ended up taking us about an hour, due to a few wrong turns. Venice is a really confusing place to navigate around at night without a map!! It was a good night and great to get into the vibe of Carnevale.After a good sleep, we decided on a day of sightseeing in Venice. We headed for a magnificent boat trip (by a ferry not a gondola - they cost way too much for our budget!) all they way along the Grand Canal. This lasted almost 40 minutes and was well worth the trip. Pity the weather had not improved. We hopped off somewhere near The Peggy Guggenheim Museum. Peggy Guggenheim was a woman from New York City, made famous by her huge collection of modern art works. Today her house in Venice as become museum of some of the finest art work from the 20th century. This was one of Stace's requests to go and see, and I came out quite amazed at the collection. It was good to see some modern art, as all we had seen this far was older stuff in Rome. It was interesting learning about Peggy too. Our next port of call was St Mark's Square (again) for a look inside the Cathedral.
Inside the Cathedral was amazing
03 - St Marks Square at night
. Although not that large, it is extremely elaborate with an amazing decorated ceiling. The treasury was very interesting too. Here there are artifacts of various saints, taken from Constantinople many moons ago. Fingers, bones, skulls, and even vertebrae are just some the items stored in ornate vessels. And also there is supposedly items from the Passion store there - like a thorn from the crown of Christ. They don't let you close enough too take a good look unfortunately. It was quite something. Anyway, after the Cathedral, we headed next door to the Doges Palace. This was the Palace of the Doge, the head of state of Venecia. Long corridors, painted ceilings, large rooms and a cool dungeon were all inside the palace. It was not something I particularly wanted to see, but in the end I thought it was fantastic. Especially the Great Council Hall. It is the largest room in Europe not supported by interior columns and also contains the largest oil painting in the world, Tintoretto's Paradise. That capped off the sightseeing for the day pretty much. We had a bit more of a wander around, and icecream, a slice of pizza and headed back to the hostel. That night we did pretty much the same as the previous night. All good fun!I liked Venice, but it was a little disappointing. Of course the Carnevale will cloud my judgement of the city, but I found it extremely mega-touristy. I don't think I saw one single local there!! Due to this I found the place a little soulless, but still very pretty. Also the weather was pish I guess. I think I would have liked it far less if Carnevale was not on. The next morning (Sunday 3rd Feb) we headed over to the train station for our final journey in Italy by train. West from Venice to Milan.
