We have officially started our journey to Switzerland on the 4th of July. To show our patriotic spirit Mackenzie and I are sporting red dresses and dragging our blue bags (they’re big enough that they have to count for something). Our journey to Gimmelwald, Switzerland includes 5 trains, a bus, and a gondola so this is going to be a pretty intense day of traveling. But anyways back to Venice...
Although I read reviews saying the directions to the hostel were really bad we followed them exactly and had no problems. To get to the hostel we had to take a water bus which was cool. It was crazy how a building would end and then there would just be water in between it and the next one. We dropped our stuff off at the hostel and then got ready to wander around the city. I asked the man at the desk for a map and he handed me a map printed on a piece of printer paper with print so small I could barely read it. I knew it was hard to find your way around in Venice in the first place and with that map I was doubtful we would be able to find our way anywhere. However it at least gave me an idea of the direction we needed to go to get places.
First we found our way to St. Mark’s Square. To get there we wandered through Venice’s small, cute roads sometimes ending in water where we would have to turn around. None of the roads actually stayed straight you would always have to find a place to turn that didn’t stop abruptly. It was literally like a big maze. Point to point our hostel was really close to the square but getting there took us about 10 minutes each time and sometimes longer because we would have trouble finding it. We went to the square at least 4 times and we literally took a different route each time. But anyways we eventually found St. Mark’s Square and it was an interesting combination of beautiful architecture, expensive restaurants, and pigeons. Yes, pigeons ... they were everywhere! People were feeding them and they would fearlessly sit on peoples shoulders, arms, and hands. It was wild. The basilica was cool but we didn’t want to pay to go inside. We spent the rest of the time wandering next to the wander and looking at all of the shops. Venice is known for its’ glass blowing so there were all kinds of things made of glass: jewelry, plates, bottle openers, etc. You name it they had it. Everything was really pretty and it was hard not to buy it all but we have been blowing through money somehow even though we’ve been really careful not to so we couldn’t afford to buy much.
After walking by the water we wandered back into the city and decided to look for these mozzarella sticks that we had heard were amazing from one of the girls from our program who had gone with her parents. She said they were near St. Mark’s Square so we walked back to the square and walked down every street close to the square looking for them and eventually found ourselves at the Rialto Bridge. It was basically a big bridge that had shops on either side over a big canal. It was cool and we got to look in more shops on the bridge and on the other side. After the bridge we were really hungry and saw a gelato place so decided to give up on the mozzarella sticks and just eat at the restaurant next to the gelato place so we could get gelato for dessert. We just happened to walk into the restaurant with the mozzarella sticks! They were basically a pretty big serving of fried ham and cheese and were really fresh. They tasted amazing and only cost 1.50 euro each which made them even better in my book.
Two of our friends from the program were also in Venice that night so we decided to go back to the hostel to get in touch with them because we wanted to all do a gondola ride together. We agreed to meet in St. Mark’s square and after we found them we walked to where there were a bunch of gondola stops. We had heard that you could bargain with them but the gondolier we talked to was with a company and he refused to do it for less than 100 which we decided was too much. We walked to another place where they had seen someone earlier and a man there agreed to take us for 80 so it would only be 20 each. The gondolier was extremely nice and during the ride he told us interesting facts about things we were seeing. He even offered to take our picture more than once. He told us his father was also a gondolier and had taught him everything he knew and bought him his gondola. He hoped his son would also carry on the tradition. Steering the gondola was definitely a skill. The gondola would come centimeters away from a wall but he would never hit it. The canals are extremely narrow in places and the gondolas are pretty big so it was amazing how well he maneuvered it.
After our romantic gondola ride, which was well worth the 20 euro, we all split a bottle of Bollini which is a specialty in Venice and is basically grapefruit flavored champagne. We walked to the square and sat on the steps listening to the orchestras at the restaurants and chatting over our drinks. It was such a nice evening and we were glad we had been able to meet up with them. We enjoyed it so much Mackenzie and I made plans to bring a bottle of wine out there the next night.
The next day we were told breakfast was from 7 to 10 so we woke up at 9:15 to eat and we were told it ended at 9. That is not what the guy who checked us in had told us but we were too tired to argue so we just sucked it up and went back to sleep. We slept in for the first morning since we had started traveling which was definitely needed. When we woke up we slowly got ready for the day and went back to the square because our friends had told us there was an awesome place to get crepes near the square. We blindly wandered around again trying to find it and eventually we did! I got a crepe with nutella and strawberry and it was amazing. It was covered in nutella and really hot. A perfect way to start out our day. Mackenzie decided to get a wrap from another place instead and then we sat on the steps of the square and ate.
After we ate we headed back to the Rialto Bridge and looked around in the shops and on the other side of the bridge a little bit more. Mackenzie tried a piece of coconut from a fresh fruit stand which was really good. She had never eaten coconut like that before so she was surprised at how much she liked it. We also found a 3 euro bottle of merlot to drink at the square that night and happened upon a grocery store. We decided to get food for our big day of traveling since food at the station is expensive. I ended up buying a sandwich, pringles, and gatorade. I tried buying an apple but I hadn’t put a sticker on it with it’s weight like I was supposed to so I just told her not to worry about it. Mackenzie on the other hand got enough fruit that she could open her own fruit stand. She has been obsessed with eating fruit since we got here and claims that she can’t eat bread or she’ll gain weight. However weight wise leaving Italy will be good for the both of us. We are both obsessed with Italian food, especially gelato. In most of Europe they encourage you to bring your own bags by charging you for bags so we decided just to carry everything we bought. I’m sure we looked ridiculous carrying all our groceries and the bottle of wine in our hands while I tried to find the pizza place I had read about in my Let’s Go guidebook for dinner. We eventually found it, sat all our things on the bar, and ordered. They had huge things of different pizzas and they asked how much you wanted instead of having pre-cut slices. You paid for it based on its’ weight. I got a slice of pizza margherita and a slice of four cheese. Both were really good and a nice end to our Italian meals.
After dinner we picked up all our groceries and eventually made our way back to the hostel to drop them off. I read about a good gelato place in an area we hadn’t explored yet so we made our way over there. The gelato was indeed good and I splurged and got two scoops since it was our last gelato. We sat on a bench in the plaza where the gelato was and ate which was nice. Then we made our way back to the hostel and asked the guy at the desk about a bottle opener to open our wine. He told us where it was and we got our wine, cups, and the bottle opener and walked back downstairs. The bottle opener consisted of a screw and a handle and we were pretty sure we wouldn’t be strong enough to open it so we asked the man at the desk if he would open it for us. He said he would but it took him and his friend sitting next to him to open it. Thankfully we asked because we definitely wouldn’t have been able to do it if they struggled that much. We took the wine to the square and sat in the same spot we had sat the night before. We both poured ourselves a cup and started chatting. Since we were sitting near some kind of police station they passed right by us a few times. I’m pretty sure having an open container is illegal but they don’t really care. So when the first cops started walking near us I told Mackenzie just so she would be a little discreet. Instead she had a moment of fear and chucked her cup in the trashcan. Apparently she forgot we weren’t allowed to legally drink. After she realized what she did she tried to see if she could get her cup back but it was covered in ice cream. She asked a few places if they had cups and they said they didn’t so she ended up having to drink from the bottle. Other than that it was another relaxing night in the square.
We woke up this morning early so we could get ready to go and eat breakfast so we could catch the water bus in time to make our train at 8:58. When we got to the water bus stop we checked the time table and the first one was at 8:24. Thankfully there was one at that time because that was the first one and it only ran on weekdays. I don’t know what we would’ve done if the time had been later or if it had been a weekend. We got on the water bus and got to the train station 15 minutes before our train was supposed to leave but it still didn’t have a gate number. We waited until 5 minutes before it was supposed to leave and there still wasn’t a gate number but we saw a bunch of people walking towards one train and apparently it was the right one. I couldn’t tell you how we were supposed to know that. But now we are on the train to Milan and we’re sitting across from two guys from Indonesia who speak English pretty well. They’ve been talking to us about their travel plans and have told us we have to go to Bali. They literally ranted about how awesome it was for a good 10 minutes so I have now added it to my list of places I need to go. But anyways today is definitely going to be a big day of travel so hopefully everything works out for us and we will be in Gimmelwald around 10pm. Happy 4th of July!
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