19

(Venice part two)

This is the kind of gross weather we woke up to on Saturday morning, though I had the true joy of experiencing it firsthand during the middle of the night.

We took a boat (photo is inside the boat) early morning to Murano, which is the island where the glass is made. We went to the factory and watched them do a demonstration (really cool) before going to the showroom where the guys tried to sell us everything under the sun. Thank you, but I do not need to buy a dancing horse made out of glass. I'm afraid it would clash with my living room. Or something like that. I did buy myself a ring though, which I think is pretty.

After that we went to Torcello, which is one of the barely inhabited islands. It has a really old church with really old mosaics though so apparently it was worth a visit. I've seen quite a lot of really old stuff on this trip so far. I have to say that island was fairly disgusting. Apparently part of the reason it was orginially abandoned was thanks to malaria from the mosquitoes, which I totally understand. I'm covered in bites at the moment and have been since the moment I arrived in Florence. I literally have a bite on my pinkie. How is that even possible?

We went to Burano after Torcello. It's an adorable island where all the houses are different colors. Legend says that because it's an island of fishermen. Apparently the fishermen used to get very drunk on their days off and wake up the next morning in the wrong bed in the wrong house. Interesting story anyway.

The island is famous for its lace, which is sold everywhere. It is not however famous for winding alleyways, which made stealth mode that much more difficult. We hid in a store for a while and ventured into residential courtyards, but by far the best moment of stealth was hiding in a corner and having the people walk by and not even notice us. I must have been a spy in a previous life, because that is skill. Three of us managed to escape again. We had lunch and did some shopping before having to leave that island. As we were leaving the sun came out in full force and the day became absolutely beautiful. And for the record, in one of the shops an old woman making lace informed me that my Italian was very good.

We then had the option to be dropped off at Lido, which is an island with a beach. I of course took this option (never one to miss a beach) and so did my four close friends and another guy. We had actually bought swimsuits the day before in Venice as none of us knew we even had a beach option until we got there. It was a bit interesting as we had to change in the middle of the beach and had no towels (just a map to put our stuff on), but the beach had beautiful fine soft sand. The water was surprisingly shallow and full of crabs, which was nerve-wracking. We ended up lying on some rocks and just chatting for a couple of hours, which was really nice.

Before leaving the island we stopped at a grocery store. A real grocery store that was really big (first big grocery store of the trip) and picked up cheese and bread and fruit for dinner. We caught the equivalent of the bus back to the main island (a boat) and ate on the side of a church in St. Mark's square, as seen below. It was a really cool thing to do, with all the people to watch and such, not that we were technically allowed to do that (so said the trash cans).

We wandered some more afterwards and took showers before going on a gondola ride at about 10pm. This was without a doubt my favorite part of the trip, thanks to the perfect time of day. The gondolier said he had been doing this job for 19 years and was the 7th generation to do so in his family, which is pretty incredible. The canals were so quiet when we went through them. He pointed out Marco Polo's house, Casanova's house, and said the area we went through was one of his favorite districts. We passed several former palaces having parties. That is the kind of Venice I would want to get to know. It's why I think I would like the city more in the dead of winter. Though it's the flooding season, I think seeing the city with less people, more quiet would be amazing. Maybe that's just the kind of person I am.

We walked back to the hotel afterwards next to one of the smaller canals. A speedboat with two boys and loud music came by and actually began to pull over for us to get on. We hesitated and didn't. I can't decide if that was the worst decision of my life or the best. On one hand cruising around Venice in a speedboat with a couple of Italian boys, loud music playing sounds like a pretty amazing night. On the other, they could have drowned us in a canal or something. I think I'm going to have to call not getting on the boat a bad decision. Damn.

The next morning the group was going on a tour of the Jewish ghetto. I skipped that with a friend and the two of us wandered around the city some more. We saw the Bridge of Sighs, which was a serious disappointment as it was covered in advertising. Boo city of Venice for that major failure. I did some minor shopping. We went back to the hotel and relaxed for a bit (I acutally got to read some of my book), before heading as a group again on a boat and then on a bus back to Florence.

All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good weekend.