Lopez Travels: Ciao, Venezia!

I was a bit nervous about my trip to Venice for a few reasons; for one I had to fly out of and into a remote airport, because I flew Ryanair, the really really cheap airline in Europe, but it was really easy in terms of transportation because a bus took us from Paris to the remote airport and a bus picked us up in Treviso (about 45 mins inland from Venice) and dropped us off right at Pizzale Roma, which is the main transportation hub when getting into Venice. From there it was really easy to catch a vaporetto (water bus) and take it to my stop. However once I got off my stop, I had no idea where to go to get to my hotel, it was late on a Sunday night (nothing opens on Sundays in Italy) and all the streets in Venice are very narrow, tall, and well they don’t make you feel the most comfortable when your in my situation, me being a first timer. After asking around at a couple of other hotels that I walked by, I finally found my place. It was a nice place, especially since I had a room that should sleep 4 all to myself. And the shared bathroom was extremely huge and extremely clean. Anyways that was my first night, I couldn’t wait to explore the city in the next few days.

My stay in Venice, consisted of exploring the primary and popular places in Venice, such as Piazza San Marco, Ponte Rialto, and Accademia. Although on my last day I was able to take a quick trip to the island of Murano, which is known for its amazing glass creations. I was able to see demonstrations on their glass blowing techniques and how easy they made it look. All their shops had the most amazing and gorgeous glass souvenirs and decorations for the house, but as you can imagine it was all very pricey.

Walking around Venice, and experiencing the city was something surreal to me the whole time. It was like being a little kid again and going to Disneyland for the first time. You’ve heard about the place, from friends, movies, books, etc. You know it exists and once your finally there you cant believe your actually there. It was a feeling like that.
Venice is truly a city of its own. For three days I did not know was a car was, because I did not see one. Everyone walked everywhere, or took the vaporetto, and you never knew what to expect around every corner, since the city’s layout is harder to piece together than a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. But that didn’t matter, this is Venice. I actually took one afternoon to walk around the inside of the city without a map or anything, just to see where I would go and end up and I remember being surprised by the actual scale of the city and how quickly I could get from one side to another.

Looking at the waterfront was particularly interesting because there isn’t just a waterfront, the whole city is built on water, and you can never really escape the water, even if you tried. You are always walking on a bridge, over canal or walking alongside a canal, constantly being around the water. The dynamic of being able to create this type of relationship between man-made and nature is stunning to experience and one of a kind in the world.