Spring break has officially begun and I am ready to embark on a three week journey through Italy, London, Scotland and Greece! The first stop is Venice. We left Glasgow Saturday, March 28th around 10:30 am to catch a taxi to the train station. It is definitely worth noting the different modes of transportation I took to Venice, because I literally took every mode except for the subway. We got to Prestwick airport around 12:30 and made our way through security. Our flight took off around 2 pm and we arrived in Turin at 5pm. We took another taxi to another train station and bought our tickets to Venice. We ate dinner in the train station which was not really good, but I figured the train station food is no comparison to what we would eventually eat in the Italian restaurants. Our train to Venice took about five hours, stopping in Milan for 15 minutes during the journey. We finally arrived in Venice at midnight and had no clue how to get to San Servillo, the island we were staying on. We ended up taking a taxi boat my friends apartment and settled into the apartment around 1 am after the long day of traveling.
Sunday morning we woke up and were ready to explore Venice! We took a boat to San Marco - the boat is basically their version of the Subway which was pretty cool, and free for the most part. Actually the boat system is pretty interesting in Venice, the subway boats run til about 2 am, and taxi boats run 24/7. But apparently if you get caught on the wrong island after 2 am the taxi boats double their prices. Anyways, when arrived in San Marco we searched for somewhere to eat breakfast. It was pouring out in Venice. I don't even think it has ever rained that hard in Scotland since I have been here. We all bought Umbrellas, because without them there was no way we would have made it through the day! We ended up eating breakfast in a small cafe called Forst which was pretty good. The interesting about the shops in Venice is that they all had umbrella holders in the front to keep the floors dry. After breakfast we explored a few Venesian glass shops, and the jewelry was beautiful! Everything was amazing, I really enjoyed walking through all the different shops. We made our way to the Piazza di San Marco and it was still pouring. There were planks set up for people to walk on to avoid the flooding. It was amazing to see how flooded Venice was, and to truely understand what people mean when they talk about Venice Underwater. Some of the Shops were completely flooded that the tables were all raised to avoid material getting damaged.
After walking around the piazza, we went inside the Basilica. The inside was beautiful, I can not imagine how long it took the artists to finish, because everything was mosaic. When we left the Basilica, we continued to walk through the square and explore the shops (we were walking on the planks of course). But we had our first official gelato in Italy!! I branched out from my normal vanilla choice and had strawberry and vanilla flavored gelato which was really good. We then met up with one of Sal's friends, and she showed us the way to the Rialto. The Rialto had a great view of Venice, and of the brave people who decided to take a gondola ride in the rainy weather.
We explored the shops near the Rialto which had more and more Venecian glass! We actually found this one stored where all the girls were able to find something special... We then headed back to the cafe to have something hot while we waited for our boat back to San Serillo. I had my first cappechino, and I have to admit I still am not a fan... but we made our way back to my friend's apartment to
dry off before dinner.We headed back to San Marco for dinner. We went out to eat at this nice Italian restaurant called 'da Roberto' to celebrate Grace's 21st birthday. The food was great, and the waiters were very nice. For my first Italian meal I had spaghetti with clams in a white sauce, and for dessert flan. The spaghetti was amazing! The waiters brought out a cake and we sang happy birthday to Grace, but then the cake was returned to the kitchen never to be seen again... I think they wanted to use it for a different guest at the restaurant...
After dinner we wanted to continue exploring Venice. It was still raining though, and the streets were, if possible, even more flooded then they were this morning, making it impossible to walk anywhere. We tried to avoid the floods, but then just gave up and walked through everything! We were all soaked, but it was actually a ton of fun. We walked to the piazza and there were people sitting outside the restaurants just watching the water. Everybody sang and danced and jumped in the water. We sat at some of the tables in the water and just listened to a man playing the violin and relaxed. We headed back later that night and attempted some laundry before going to bed.
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