Ariel, Mattie and I all set out on our wonderful adventure late Thursday night after our last class. our plan was to arrive in Venice around 5am tour Venice, stay the night in a hostel on the mainland, leave in the morning for Bologna, and be home in time for dinner ☺
Well, the above sounds a lot easier than it really was. We got on our train Thursday night at 8.20. There was no problem with the first train; it was about two hours without any troubles. Next we had a three-hour layover, waiting for our ‘overnight’ train to Venice. Well the accommodations at the train stations here are not what we would think. Thankfully we were inside, but the chairs, wow what a back ach! Once we were on the train we were assigned compartments and we were in one with only two other people so it was not terrible. However it was not easy sleeping sitting up and actually getting a good nights sleep. Maybe after dozing off for about 45 minutes we arrive in Venice…
I do not think I have ever seen a city this quiet and empty. We were even awake for the street cleaners to be out. It was absolutely amazing! Although we all really needed a caffe, we survived for about an hour just walking around and getting our bearings. We stopped for a coffee and a croissant for breakfast at about 6ish. Once we were back on the streets again, we went to check out San Marc’s Square before we went to the museums that we had picked out. When we arrived in the square, as you can guess, there was no one else there; even the pigeons were still sleeping. It was amazing though to see such famous area so empty. We then stopped for a moment to see the sunrise (although it was rather cloudy and rainy).
We then made our way to the Academia Museum however their opening time had been postponed due to a staff meeting. So we ran over to a close café and ate a bit more breakfast which basically consisted of brucetta, the guy behind the counter looked at us like we were crazy since it was only 830 at this point. Finally around 915 we entered the museum and look around while it rained outside (it was perfect timing!). Once we were done looking at the religious art, we decided to head over to the Peggy Guggenheim museum. I have never seen so many modern bizarre crazy art in one enclosed area. Well I am getting ahead of myself here: the Peggy Guggenheim museum was dedicated by Peggy when she died; the museum itself is her house that she had in Venice. She was huge into modern art, surrealism and that type of art. It was definitely interesting however I found it difficult to understand.
After that adventure we stuffed our face with pizza, naturally; we were so starving! Then we made our way back to Saint Marc’s square to find it absolutely crowded! We went through the Basilica and went to see Saint Marc’s tomb. After our tour through the basilica we pit stopped to get some gelato and then went to see the great big arches. There, we naturally went shopping—the scarf selection is absolutely amazing!!
We continued to walk around for a few more hours, but by 4ish we were absolutely exhausted! We made our way to our hostel and passed out pretty quickly.
We woke up the next morning bright and early to catch the earliest train to Bologna. The train ride was no more than three hours and we arrived around 10am. Bologna is one of the largest university cities in Italy, housing the oldest university in Italy. The university is so old that it has the coat of arms of all of the professors dating back to its beginning. The university as well as the town was absolutely beautiful! Unfortunately there was not much to do there aside from the university, the two towers, and the museum. The rest of the town was a lot of shopping, and well, at this point it was time for home.
However on our way back to the train station, Ariel and I came across the cutest looking basil plant and decided to adopt him. We thought long and hard about what to name him; finally we came to a conclusion. Charles William Henry. He still sits on our kitchen table and is loved by all ☺
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