I've had a very busy week! I went to a neighboring town called Asolo for an evening, visited Venice for a day, explored Paderno del Grappa more, and completed my LIFE class (the leadership workshop).
Last Friday, a group of CIMBA students took taxis to Asolo for the evening. Asolo is a small town neighboring Paderno del Grappa. We ate dinner at a Pizzeria and explored the town ending up at an adorable bar. Asolo is a very old town on a hill that was home to the Queen of Cyprus in the Middle Ages. There is still a lot of old stone architecture from that time. The pizzeria was my first experience with Italian pizza. The Italian pizzas are served as personal pizzas and have a very thin crust. I ordered a Romana pizza which is topped with mozerella, anchovies and oregano. They had a oil infused with red peppers as well as straight red peppers which I also added to my pizza. I think I'll be eating a lot of carbs this trip...
I also experienced the wine of the region called Prosecco. It is a sparkling white wine. Prosecco is also a main component in the main drink of the region, Spritz. A Spritz is made with Prosecco, and either Aperol or Campari. The Campari one is bitter and tastes like grapefruit. The Aperol one is sweeter and the favorite of all my American friends. I like both. When we visited Venice there was a t-shirt in a shop that said "Spritz?" and I almost felt the need to buy it!
Ahhhh, Venice. I absolutely love Venice. We had class on Saturday last weekend because of all the workshops and orientations during the first week, so a group of 30 CIMBA students decided to spend a day and a half in Venice. On Saturday evening we took a bus to the train station, then a train to the island. I know this seems obvious, but there are no cars in Venice, only boats. They have a boat bus system called the Vaporetto. The hostel we stayed at was on the island of Giudecca, which can only be reached by boat. We ventured by Vaporetto to our hostel, only no one had really researched which stop we should get off at. After some educated guesses and a little debate we finally made it to our hostel. It is strange to navigate a foreign city without my iPhone, normally I would just open up google maps.
Finally we all arrived at our hostel, Generator Hostel. It was extremely trendy and the rooms were nice and clean. My group was extremely exhausted so we just stayed at the bar and restaurant in the hostel. There were a lot of young people from all over the world. I met some other Americans and an Austrailian. We slept the night and were off on the Vaporetto by 9am the next morning. My main travel buddy was my friend from back home, Megan. We were with other people from time to time but we always stuck together. Our first order of business, after being struck with awe from all the gorgeous buildings and narrow canals, was to find a cafe for breakfast. We easily found a place and got our coffee and pastry easily. Then we were off to the Rialto Bridge! The bridge is one of the most famous in Venice that crosses the main canal. The best part of the bridge was the shops surrounding it. We found the cheapest and best selection here of all the places we explored. I bought myself a mask, then bought two gifts for people (both made of glass from Venice, but I won't say what they are in case those people are reading this). We then ventured to the Doge's Palace and the St Mark's Basilica.
The Doge's Palace was my favorite thing we did. We ventured to the front gate to buy tickets. The student tickets were 10€ but they included entry to the Palace as well as another museum so we purchased them. It was my fault for not researching, but I had no idea about the Doge or much of Venice's history. I was shocked. The palace was literally a mini city within the city of Venice. After taking pictures in the square in the middle of the palace we ventured inside. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures inside the palace. The imperial rooms were being restored so we weren't allowed to go there, but we still saw a ton of the palace. We saw political room after political room. Each more grand than the next. We learned there was a fire in the palace in the 1500s which destroyed a lot of the things inside which needed to be restored. The paintings are huge and grand and pestered all over the walls and ceilings. We spent quite some time just looking up in every room. After viewing all of the state rooms we were directed down to the prison. We went through narrow passageways and steep staircases to see the prison. It was creepy to think that in these narrow, wet, dark halls there were criminals. It was a complete change from the rooms we had viewed just before. We then made it through the maze of the prison cells and out into the open air. It was quite an experience I truly recommend it.
We then wandered around the city, ate gelato (my first gelato experience and it is as good as people say), and headed to the St Mark's Basilica. I did not realize this, but I probably should have been more aware that during high tide the entire St Mark's Square floods at least a foot. It was crazy to see the water so high. It makes me wonder how a city has survived so many years being so close to water (I figure a lot of stone instead of wood buildings). Megan has the Rick Steve's travel book and he describes Venice as a city of elegant decay (very true). We then visited the basilica, it was fantastic. I was shocked at how detailed and elaborate the mosaic work was. Another must see in Venice. We were not allowed to have our backpacks in the Basilica, but they provide a FREE bag check! Yay!
After some more wandering and exploring we had some time before our train left. We chose to check out the museum that we also bought admission to with the Doge's Palace. It was called Museum Correr. We only had 40 minutes to spare, but once we went inside we realized there was so much to see 40 minutes wouldn't be enough! We had to rush through, but it seemed like a fantastic museum. There was also a cafe in the museum that overlooks the basilica with reasonably cheap prices, I plan on going there the next Venice trip!
Our day now coming to a close, we boarded the Vaporetto once again. This time we were taking a route through the Grand Canal (the large canal that runs though Venice). It was really pretty to see everything Venice had to offer. We then got off at the train station, had some pizza and went home.
I'll be back to Venice at least two more times before I head back to the States. I am excited to explore more of the gorgeous city.
Here are some pictures from Asolo:
Pictures from Venice:
That's all for now!
The plan is to visit Florence this weekend, so stay tuned!
Ciao,
Carolyn
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