Carnivale di Venezia

Venice and Rain and One Star Hotels, Oh my!!

Last Friday morning February 5, we hopped on an early RyanAir flight to Venice. It still amazes me that flights are so much cheaper than trains now a days, we spent about half the money and got there in a quarter of the time! Our flight was short and sweet, and we arrived in Venice in about forty minutes... and it was raining.

The first order of busiess was to find our hotel to drop our stuff off before heading to the island of Venice. Our hotel "Hotel Giovannina" was on in Mestre down the street from the bus stop, and was a ten minute bus ride to Venice so it was a pretty good location. However, we quickly discovered that the location ended up being possibly the only good thing about the place. Honestly, if you have an enemy and they happening to be travelling to Venice and you really want to get back at them for something, recommend this hotel!




So let me tell you a little bit about Hotel Giovannina. First, there is no way that this place would ever pass an American health and safety regulations check, no way. We first got there and checked in (the guy at the dest was very helpful atleast) and he handed me a key with a key chain that honestly weighed like five pounds. He told us that you must turn in your key everytime you leave the hotel and they would give it back everytime you came back. Later, we discovered that to get your key back you just say "Room 118" and they hand it to you without checking ID or anything. So basically, anyone could say they were staying in our romo and coud get the key = awesome security. The room didnt seem too bad upon irst entering, but it went downhill from there. The walls and ceilings were stained with God knows what, Tom's sheets had a stain on them, and my blankets smelled awful.

The worst was the bathroom, which deserves its own paragraph. We noticed that the shower was strategically placed in the doorway (???) so that you had to walk through the shower to get to the toilet. That, and there was nothing to catch the water from the shower, so when someone showered, the water just went all over the bathroom floor and leaked into the room (so, you can imagine, part of the floors of our room was soggy from all the mold underneath).

We dropped our stuff off (but took our valuables with us) and left that hotel room as quickly as we could. We meandered arouond Mestre for a little while, found a gorcery store and grabbed a bite to eat before heading to the bus station. Our hotel receptionist had given good advice about what buses to catch and where to buy tickets, so that was helpful. The bus ride over kinda got us out of our dreary little run that we had fallen into because of the rain and the room because driving over water and seeing all of the ports and stuff was gorgeous. We got off the bus (it was still raining) and started walking. There were tons of sidewalk shops and stands, most of them selling masks and costumes for Carnivale which was starting the next day. We wandered around Venice for a little while, just happy to be there and admiring the canals and the such.



We eventually found our way to Ponte Rialto, Venice's most famous bridge crossing over the Grand Canal. Apparently, the original wood bridge collapsed in the 1500's so the built a new, huge one made ouot of stone. Today, there are at least a dozen shops built on the top of the bridge, its a really fun place to shop and a huge tourist site. From there we made it to Piazza San Marco (Saint Mark's Square), which was beautiful. We could see them already setting up for Carnivale and I got so excited :)


We spent the afternoon sight seeing and it was very relaxing. First, we went into the Basilica di San Marco which was absolutely breath taking on the inside... there were dozens of signs saying no pictures but I did anyways. On the altar we saw the tomb of Saint Mark, and the altar piece marking the tomb was gorgeous. There were also mosaics everywhere depicting stories from the Bible, they were so intricate it was amazing!

Next we went to the Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace) which was right next to the Basilica and had a pink and white facade that reminded me of a fairytale castle. Inside we found dozens of grand chambers with incredibe paintings on the walls and ceiling and stucco and marble floors (again i wasnt supposed to take pictures but I did). The palace housed the Doge's residence, the head of State, as well as other government offices. Ultimately we learned that the almost over the top decor actually served the purpose of illustrating to visiting ambassadors and diplomats Venice's extreme wealth and power. Perhaps my favorite part of the visit was the "Prigioni Nuove" which were prisons built next to the Palace to house the prisoners that were earlier locked in the palace's attics and basement. The prison was connected to the Palace by a bridge over the canal called the Ponte dei Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs), which got its name from the legend that once a prisoner crossed this bridge after getting sentanced, they would never return.



After the palace visit, we shopped around a bit and got dinner. Venice was absolutely dead, probably because of the rain, and there was hrdly anyone on the roads. We stopped to get some dinner and we were the only people in therestaurant, which was a little awkward because then the waiter just stood and watched us eat. We decided to head back to the hotel afterwards because we were exhausted and wanted to rest up for Carnivale the next day, and we were in bed by eight o'clock (but not without a lot of whining to eachother about the disgustingness of the beds).

In the morning, we debated with eachother for about an hour whether showering in our scary shower was worth it, and I was ultimately the one to take the chance first (terrible idea- frozen water, gross floor = two minute shower). When we left, we stopped at the grocery store for some breakfast and headed to Venice for the day. When we got there, a lot of people were dressed up in capes and gowns with Carnivale masks, so Lizzie and I bought a couple cheap ones for ourselves. We spent the day people watching and admiring all of the cool costumes. Tourists and Americans were everywhere, they seemed to greatly out number the number of Venetians. We watched as they prepared for a performance in the main square and stopped by another museum. The performance during the day seemes to be geared towards children, because a creepy bunny came out dancng and singing. We shopped around a little bit more and grabbed a bit to eat mid afternoon (best pizza I've had in Italy! I wish I could remember the name of the restaurant) before heading back for a nap. When we finally got up, the rain had finally stopped for a little bit and our spirits were lifted. We ran into a friend from Rome (Dan) who had bought complete costume for hundreds of euro, but it was very cool ad we hungout with him and his friends for a little bit. We headed back to St. Mark's square for a more adult performance in Italian. There were so many people! and so many cool costumes, I'm glad I experienced it :)





We left on a plane early Sunday morning, and we were all excited to be out of the hotel! Looking back, I wish that our visit to Venice wasn't full of rain, but I think that we did a phenomenal job making the best of it, and Carnivale was so fun :)
I actually missed Rome a little bit and I'm excited that this weekend we will be staying in town to get some Rome-time in!