Venice

We arrived in Venice just before it began to pour like mad. Now on my fourth umbrella of the trip, I did my best to stay dry as we walked the short distance from our hotel to a recommended lunch spot just a couple minutes away. We all left our umbrellas at the door and dragged our soaked and starving selves into Trattoria Pontini to enjoy (you guessed it) some pasta. This time I ordered it with an assortment of seafood, except it required a ridiculous amount of work wrestling the meat out of each shell. Still, it was delicious and worth the effort!

After lunch, we walked all around Venice, through the old Jewish ghetto to the Rialto bridge and finally making our way to Piazza San Marco. All the streets and canals were magical, packed with stores selling Venetian masks and chocolates and sweets and plenty of other souvenirs, not to mention all the restaurants. It was all just so fantastic; the city I remembered seeing in movies like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade lived up to its billing, without a doubt.

In Piazza San Marco, we stopped at Caffè Florian, the oldest coffee house in continuous operation (established in 1720) before catching a small performance in Ateneo San Basso by five-piece orchestra featuring a fantastic tenor and soprano and included works by Vivaldi, Puccini, Verdi, and a few other outstanding Italian composers. We were all pretty pleased with the purchase, despite the tiredness and growing hunger we were all feeling. So after the concert, we grabbed dinned at a restaurant around the corner and then came back to our room to get some well-deserved sleep.

The next day after breakfast, we split up since we wanted to do different things on our last day in Venice; Pat and Joanie went off together, and my friend Angela (whom I met in Florence) and I went toward Santa Lucia to catch a boat to Murano and Burano, nearby islands each with their own charm.

In Murano, we stopped into a glass blowing exhibition to see a master do his work and learn a bit about the trade that this place is most well known for. From there, we continued walking around the island exploring the artwork on display in the courtyards and shops lining the canals. Pretty impressive work, to say the least.

Burano was next up for us, and it was even more charming than Murano. Lined with different color houses all up and down the canals, it was a beautiful and peaceful alternative to the more tourist packed Venice. We found a pleasant place for lunch (Principe Ristorante Pizzeria) right along one of the canals and then headed back to Venice.

We walked toward Piazza San Marco since Ange hadn't yet been, and discovered a mask store along the way that had a piano. Naturally, I had to ask if I could play. A few tunes later, more customers had poked their heads into the shop and the store clerk thanked us for stopping in and entertaining for a while. It felt great to play again, after not tickling the ivories since Berlin (and that piano was so terrible I stopped playing after one song). So finally, after the masks and the music, we made it (back) to Piazza San Marco, where the sun was beginning to set on the basilica.

Ange and I took a water bus from San Marco toward the Rialto bridge, which was not far from her hostel. Shortly after getting off there, we said our farewells and I made my way back toward our hotel, where Pat, Joanie and I had agreed to meet at the end of the day. I sat down for a brief dinner on the way back, then met my travel mates and grabbed some final souvenirs and gelato before departing for Salzburg on an overnight train. It was a great last day in Italy, and although I hardly spoke the language, I realized how many things I enjoyed while in Italy: the piazzas, the pasta, the gelato and tiramisu, the old streets and canals, the churches and fountains and all the architecture, and all the friends we had made along the way.