Venice - Day 1

Ciao! Mi chiamo Logan. And I don't remember any of the Italian that I learned.  Oops. Anyways Venice I'm back! Luckily it's so small and were so close to Plazza San Marco (Aka St Mark's Square covered in skylions holla at St. Mark's k-8) that we could sleep in and get some breakfast leisurely. Honestly 3 out of the 4 of us ended up with some form of pizza for our first meal of the day. Once we got into the plaza I noticed there were less pigeons than I remembered... Maybe my memory was just exaggerated or maybe Paige the pigeon hater secretly has a BB gun and went to town on some pigeons last night. Either way the plaza was beautiful as ever. We first went into the Basilica Di San Marco, which has been the first church we've been to to actually enforce the modest dress requirement along with the no pictures rule. But the outside was fair game!

I was super stoked about all the gold, mosaic ceilings and patterned ground. Those are literally my favorite elements in a church. Lucky for us there was also an outside section that looked a lot like the inside. 

This doesn't so justice to the rich gold in the mosaic! But even the floor was a well thought out work of art!

The square also hosts the Campanile.

And the boundaries that make it a plaza.

But boy does it get loud when the hours change. I think at least three separate bell towers ring. Next we went to check out the Palazzo Ducale, home to the doges. The student discount was a 50% discount and only Arin and I brought our (expired) student IDs so Paige and Magdalena decide they'd rather just walk around that pay full price so Arin and I went on to explore the palace.

The palace pretty much shares a wall with the basilica.

I'd like to point out that this guy is standing on what appears to be a dragon. (Random: I also read in my book that the Basilica di Santa Maria e San Donato on the island of Murano has a set of alleged dragon bones and I totally want to see them!) Unfortunately they were really strict about no pictures once you were inside the rooms, but the golden staircase was still considered outside.

I'll take one of those please. The palace was extravagant to say the least. The walls and ceilings were covered in intricate paintings and designs. We also got to see a collection of armory and artillery from the 1490-1700s. They even had horse face armor (which makes me kinda sad/ good luck trying to put that on any horse I know). The view out the windows was also fair game and gorgeous.

Lovely day right?

Next we passed over the Bridge of Sighs that connects the palace to its dungeons. It got this name because this is where prisoners caught there last glimpses of freedom. The dungeons were fun a little bit confusing but we were able to make it out and to freedom and again. 

And it felt so good!

Lunch time anyone? We read about a great wine bar/ traditional Italian food place for lunch and set off in the general direction. Before we knew it we had gone a map over according to Paige's handy maps, which just shows how small Venice is (it would have taken about 3 miles in London or Paris). The cool thing was we stumbled upon Venice's oldest bridge the Rialto, which we had planned to explore with an accompanying market tomorrow.

We got back on tract and made it to Enoteca Bilbon. I got meatballs and artichokes and gnocchi.

We all tried Venice's speciality drink a Spritz.

The food gets an A the drink gets a C. The only reason it gets a C is because its not my taste. Paige's book described it as tart and just soda water and a tart orange liquor and that sure is what is was. Just too tart for my taste, but at least it had ice in it, which is not common for European drinks. I was still thirst and sadly there had been no places to refill my water bottle but for 90 (euro) cents I got a water and a super cute little green meringue. (80 cents was the cheapest water yet!)

We continued to wander down random streets for a while and I finally, after lots of store research, have found a replacement for my cross body purse. The ceremony of the official change of purse will happen tomorrow, it may be tearful. I have had this purse for all four years of college and it had gone out with me almost EVERY SINGLE TIME. It has broken twice as been rained on, spilled on, stepped on and more. I am honestly having a hard time parting from it, but it's time. More on that tomorrow (since I know it's riveting). Anyways we took a little rest at the hotel and researched some restaurants. We decided on Taverna San Lio. While I was kind of hoping not to spend so much the fixed menus for 19 euros was a really good deal in comparison to getting just one course. We decided to have a nice long classic Italian dinner (well I guess a true classic Italian dinner would have even had another antipasti course...). For my first course I got the ravioli with tomato sauce and the most cream ricotta center ever.

It tasted home made and delicious. Arin got the bean soup, which was also super yummy (she let me try some).

Magdalena and Paige started with the spaghetti and clams.

I was happy we got free bread because I wiped my plate clean using a roll.

As for the second course Magdalena, Arin and I all got the chicken.

I hadn't realized a haven't had chicken since London! Chicken is usually an everyday occurrence for me! Paige was different and got the fried fish, which had a lot more than just fried fish.

We were all originally a little bummed when the waitress said the only dessert option was a scoop of ice cream when we are surrounded by so many gelato options, however this was amazingly creamy ice cream with fruit!

It was so good! After that we walked back to our hotel and now I'm going to bed (that's right I actually wrote this one the day it actually happened)! Good night from Venice!