Venice and Florence

I was a little hesitant about Venice for a lot of reasons.  First of all, this was my first destination on my own this trip.  While I am okay with being by myself, after hanging out with people for the previous week and a half I was a little nervous to get out there on my own.  I also was a little nervous about finding my hostel.  But once I got there, I realized that I had nothing to be nervous about.  Venice was beautiful right from the start and I was able to find the only place in the entire city to give me a free map: the Carlton on the Grand Canal.  They were probably not thrilled to see a backpacker in their lobby but whatever, I needed a map.  After that, I ended up finding my hostel no problem.  This hostel was also a very different/interesting place of lodging.  First of all, it was in a very old building that was basically a museum.  The hostel was on one floor, the rooms were decorated as they had been when the building belonged to royalty which means everything was decorated and there were naked, baby angels staring at me when I slept.  Another thing, there were only locks on the front door, not to all of the rooms.  But that didn't matter here, everyone acted like one big family.  It was refreshing, and nice for me since I was by myself.

I didn't do much that first night and got up early the next morning to go out and see the city.  Venice is very easy to get lost in.  And that didn't matter.  I had no where special to be, I was wandering around by myself and I could do wahtever I wanted.  I saw all of the main sights almost right away and by that point it was only about 1pm.  I decided to buy a 12 hour pass for the water buses so that I could get on the water, without paying 80 euro for a gandola ride for myself.  It was great, I ended up going to the island of Lido just to see what was out there.  Came back to Venice and continued walking around and taking the bus when I could find a stop (I got lost a lot).

canals everywhere

standing on the rialto, with the grand canal in the background

gondolas

ponte rialto and the grand canal

restaurants along the grand canal

i liked this older couple walking their dog

pretty view from the water bus

lido, very different from venice

san marco square

surprise! another canal

mask stores everywhere

view from our hostel balcony

video of the grand canal from the water bus

That night, I ate dinner at the hostel and sat two seats away from Kayla, who I know from U of O!  It was complete chance that we were both in Venice at the same time, at the same hostel and sat so close at dinner.  We had talked about visiting each other during this year as she was studying in Spain but unfortunately it never worked out.  Glad we at least got to meet up once!

kayla and me at our hostel in venice

And the next morning, after a quick breakfast with Kayla and some other girls I had met, I was on my way to Florence to meet back up with Margaux.  I probably spent the least amount of time in Venice than any of the other cities but it really didn't need more time than that.  As Vanessa said, "You see one canal, you see them all." Ciao Venice!

I got to Florence and Margaux was waiting for me at the hostel we were staying at.  She took me on a quick little tour of the city and then we decided to go out to dinner for our last night.  We tried a couple of different places but there were so many people out.  We ended up eating really late but the dinner was good and they didn't charge us for our dessert. The next day Margaux left for Africa, where she was going on a safari and volunteering for a month.  It was sad to say bye to her, she was one of the first assistants that I had met.  But we promised to meet back up in California when we both get back.

We had met a few people in our hostel the night before and Dustin had wanted to come to the Accademia Gallery with me the next day to see Michangelo's David statue.  Sarah and Blake, a couple from Canada decided to join us.  We only had to wait about a half hour to get into the museum but it was totally worth it.  I was in complete awe when I saw the statue.  I had seen pictures, and heard about it, but nothing was as amazing as standing in front of this giant statue.  You weren't allowed to take photos but of course, I snuck one in.

michaelangelo's david

After that we got lunch, because the Basilica wasn't open for the afternoon yet.  We got lunch (which consisted of pizza, duh) and then went inside the Basilica, walked over to the Ponte Vecchio, and to the Plazza Michaelangelo to get pictures of Florence from the famous lookout point.  We also planned to go back at night because we heard it was amazing to see the skyline at night.

basilica in florence

interior

basilica san croce

ponte vecchio

with the beautiful florence skyline

new friends: dustin, sarah, and blake

piazza vecchio

After eating an amazing dinner, we went back up to the lookout point and people were right, it was amazing to see.  We brought some wine, andof course I brought glow sticks.  We ended up having glow stick races by rolling glow bracelets down the stairs.  Then proceeded to make a giant chain of glow and take pictures on each other's shoulders.  Another fun night with new friends!

florence skyline at night

sarah and me, and our glow chain

hanging out with dustin

my attempt at an artsy photo

The next day, we all went our separate ways: Sarah and Blake back to England where Sarah was studying, Dustin to France, and I was headed to my much anticipated visit to Assisi which I will talk about in my next blog post.

Florence was amazing, just like everyone had told me.  I'm really happy with the time I was able to spend there! Grazie Florence!

C'est la belle vie! :)