Venice, Italy

May 17th, 2008

We arrived at the campsite in Venice around 6:15 and officially began the cabin leg of the tour. The campsite in Venice is not that bad as it is triple share and fairly spacious with a decent bathroom (nothing different from the previous hostel rooms, just cabins and separate). Our first included dinner at the campsite was a pasta with meat sauce, salad, cookie, and a free lemoncello welcome shot. After having amazing pasta at the rest stop, I was not that impressed with the meal, but then again you cannot beat real Italian cooking anyway. I finished off the night playing cards in one of the girls cabins and called it an early night for we were going into Venice the next morning!

May 18th, 2008

We had a 7:15 wakeup call for a 7:45 breakfast with another array of fruit and an egg omelet which was quite welcomed. We left the campsite by water taxi at 8:20 at which we had the first rain of the trip. Luckily Venice is a city you can still enjoy even if it is raining, although you will get drenched and will not be able to do the gondola ride.

We had another included 'demonstration' of lace and venetian glass which was no more than a brief explanation of how it is made (although the glass maker did blow a cat which was kinda neat) and a stop in the overpriced gift shop that barely anyone bought from. After that we were on our own to enjoy Venice for the day. It was at this time I began my gelato run of eating as much as I can. My first set was a five scoop cone of lemon, strawberry, watermelon, banana, and vanilla purchased for 3.20 euro and was absolutely amazing. I believe out of all the flavors I tried, strawberry was the best (granted it is my favorite to begin with). You owe it to yourself to buy a heaping scoop of gelato when you are in Italy.

Since it was raining horribly and the line to Doge's Palace was crazy long from cruise ship people, we decided to walk around St Marks Square (which was completely empty, eerily empty even for a Sunday morning) and find a real Italian lunch. We wandered into a restaurant and ordered pizzas, which you can get whole for under 10 euro. I ordered a Mediterranean for 7.50 euro plus tip which was absolutely amazing. After lunch we wandered around the Rialto bridge for shopping where I purchased 2 masks for a rather large sum of money. The first mask was a combined mask of the comedy and tragedy faces for 125 euro (I go for quality) and the second mask was a colorful cat mask for my sister-in-law for about 36 euro. Venetian mask shops are plentiful and amazingly colorful on the inside. Even if you are not buying I definitely recommend going into a few to check out the collection and artisans working in the back.

After we finished shopping we headed back to St Marks Square for my second helping of gelato. This time I purchased from a vendor right on the square and paid 4 euro for five scoops: coconut, tiramisu, coffee, stracciatella (no idea), cacao. I also sampled nocciola (no clue) and pistachio (which is AMAZING). I love gelato and continued this trend for the rest of Italy. Once we sampled our gelato the rain finally let up for 15 minutes and we got to play with the pigeons in St Marks Square. You can buy contraceptive laced pigeon food for 1 euro, but we just fed them cone bits. The pigeons in Venice are not shy at all and will jump all over you if you have food, which is exactly what they did. It was quite fun to watch 3 to 5 jump over everyone for a few minutes until it started to rain again and we ran for cover inside St Marks Basilica (free, about a 15 minute wait).

St Marks Basilica is really beautiful on the inside and for being free is highly recommended considering the line moves very quickly. There isn't anything super special about the Basilica aside from being large, ornate, and beautiful however. After we went inside the basilica we split up so I could go up the Campanile (8 euro). No one else wanted to pay that fee, however the view of Venice from the top was breathtaking, although it was raining sideways, windy, and insanely cold at the top. You could see all the way across Venice to the water in every direction and made for great photos. If you have 8 euro to spend I highly recommend it for the view.

We were supposed to meet up at 4pm to catch our gondola ride which we found out was canceled due to the rain. This is fine by me as everyone that was on the gondolas looked unhappy and were covered up by umbrellas. I was ok with this as well because sharing a gondola with 5 other people just doesn't sound very comfortable either. We were originally going to stay in the city until about 5:30 when the gondola ride was over however we caught an earlier ferry back to the campsite as the weather was atrocious. Even so we got to see practically everything we wanted to (except Doge's Palace and the gondola) and were ok on going back. If you have time in Venice, ask your tour manager about the wine shops that will give you a liter of wine in a plastic bottle for 3 euro. There are a few good ones near the Rialto bridge that sell decent wine very very cheap that a few people on our tour picked up (we were going to but they were closed for mid-day break when we were going to go).

That evening for dinner we were provided with a tray of pork, ribs, and chicken with fries, apples, and wine. The food was decent however the vegetarian option this night was a whole pizza that was quite good. After seeing this option I had to ask what the vegetarian option was for the rest of the trip as to not get the bad meal.

Later in the evening we had the second theme party of the tour, Beach Night. However with it being rainy and nasty no one on our tour dressed up. A few people on the other tours did however and made for an interesting evening. The bar at Venice is pretty nice compared to other sites. I had purchased a bottle of wine from the local store and did not get anything to drink although everyone got the infamous Attitude Adjuster (8 euro) which was about 5 shots of alcohol and fruit juice mixed in. I tried a few sips of others drinks and can say that it tastes like a raspberry fruit drink with maybe a slight burn of alcohol. I would not recommend doing more than one of these as they really really throw you off if you do. After hanging out for a bit I called it a night as we were leaving for Rome the next morning!

May 19th, 2008

We had a rather late wake up call at 7:45 for an 8:15 breakfast of the general sandwich and fruit for a 9am departure. We made a stop at 12:15 for 45 minutes where I purchased an amazing linguini with a bottle of chianti for 8.35 euro. We then drove until 3:30 for another 45 minute break and finally arrived at the campsite in Rome at 5:30

Photos: Attached are photos of the Venice day sheet, accommodations, and around Venice. For additional photos of Venice see the following albums

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2089673&l=fc30b&id=21902759

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2089675&l=ae1fd&id=21902759

Jun 4, 2008

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