Tuesday May 29

After our short stay in Florence, the group traveled via high-speed train to Venice on Tuesday. While the term “high-speed” would tend to indicate a quick trip, our train ride on Tuesday was anything but a short ride. Our ride began with an on-time departure followed by about 30 minutes of normal travel. However, after moving at a good pace for a while the train came to a sudden stop and proceeded to travel slowly or stop completely for the next hour or so. As it turned out, and many have now seen on the news, a large earthquake had taken place in northern Italy with an epicenter fairly close to Bologna. Our train from Florence to Venice actually went through the town of Bologna which was the reason our train either slowed or stopped as we traveled through the earthquake-rattled region. Our train ended up arriving in Venice about an hour and fifteen minutes late but fortunately the group made it safe to warm and sunny Venice. 

One of Venice's many canals

After being spoiled with posh hotel rooms in Rome, the group was brought down to earth with our accommodations in Venice. Three other students and I are sharing a room with three beds, no air conditioning, no television, and no internet in our room. While most of these items are luxuries rather than necessities, I’m glad that we are busy enough that our hotel room is only used to catch a few hours of sleep at night rather than a place to relax.

After arriving in Venice and dropping our bags off at the worst hotel I have stayed at since a Civil War Battlefield trip with my Dad, grandfather, and uncles, the group was famished so we all split up to grab some lunch. While Venice is definitely a beautiful city, you realize that you pay for its beauty at such things as lodging and meals. Once a few of us decided on a place to grab a bite to eat and sat down, I was shocked at the prices on the menu. There wasn’t a drink on the menu, water included, that was less than 4 Euros, and the cheapest item was a pizza the size of a bagel for 5 Euros. Not wanting to blow a decent amount of cash on a small lunch, I decided to get the 5 Euro fist-sized pizza and with nothing to drink. As soon as we finished up our tiny, but expensive meals, we decided to walk around and tour the city. It’s actually very easy to get lost in Venice because, unlike most cities, Venice is not laid out on a grid system and has walkways leading to dead ends or circles at any turn. We had to stop a few times to grasp our bearings, but overall we navigated the city well. As we were walking, I saw a tiny pizza shop with massive slices of pizza for 2 Euros each. Still starving from the tiny lunch, I grabbed a slice and shook my head as I ate probably triple the amount of food for half the cost I had paid earlier in the day. If I learned nothing else from our walk around Venice, I learned that it pays to be patient and search out fair prices for food.

View from St. Mark's Square

After walking around most of the afternoon taking in the sites, the group as a whole met up at 8 PM to walk to St. Mark’s Square as the sun was setting. St. Mark’s square is the main public square in Venice for both pigeons and tourists and is filled with shops, restaurants, as well as St. Mark’s Basilica. While it was very pretty to walk as the sun was setting over the canals, it was also nice that the darker skies provided some cooler weather. Afterwards we walked around for a bit longer checking out some massive yachts docked close to St. Mark’s Square before making the trek home for the evening. While the travel was longer than expected and the hotel grungier than expected, I’m glad we made it to Venice to see the beautiful city for a few days.