BIANCA CARANGELO

Backstory: This weekend is our last weekend in Italy! Classes end Thursday and Friday we head to Paris, then home. Michaela and I had been wanting to make it to Venice which has proven difficult due to the record breaking flooding that has been occurring. However, Michaela and I took a chance and decided that we are just going to go to Venice, maybe get our feet wet in the floods, and at least we will have made it! To our surprise, the water level was high but thankfully there was no flooding!! 

 

Today Michaela and I woke up early and hopped on a train to Venice! The train was two hours and five minutes and we arrived at 11:30 am!! Right when we walked out of the train station we were face to face with a canal, the first of many that we would see in Venice! It was stunning! Venice is composed of a TON of small islands separated by canals and connected by bridges. Everywhere we turned it was either building walls, canals, or bridges — it was a maze and a half!! We were thankful that we did not see any cars, vespas, OR bikers, which are common pedestrian threats that we need to watch out for when we are walking. It was great being able to walk around without having to be nervous about getting run over! The streets were all small and skinny with street names painted on buildings so that pedestrians are able to try to find their way around. I was thankful that I wasn’t one of the many people with large suitcases trying to find their way through the maze or having to take a water taxi. 

 

We also found it interesting that Google Maps was difficult to use because it surprisingly was not the best in that area. This was probably the first place I have been to that Google Maps hasn’t been precise with street names and locations. Nevertheless, we made our way around and ended up finding our way to our gondola ride after spending the beginning of our day roaming around the area and taking in the sights. Our gondola ride was at 3 pm and lasted a half hour!! It was so peaceful and flew by. We spend the rest of the day roaming around again and then went back to the train station for our train at 5:30 pm. Once again, the train was 2 hours and upon arrival in Florence (OUR LAST TIME COMING “home” TO FLORENCE = SAD) we walked to Oino’s, one of the restaurants we got pizza at during our first week here. This time, Michaela and I decided to try pasta and it was delicious! I got Lasagna bolognese and Michaela got pasta with tomato sauce. Of course we also had to stop and get some gelato to finish off the night — Yum!