Venezia

This morning bright and early we arrived at the train station in Milan from the subway and grabbed a bite to eat. it seems the most commonly found breakfast item here is croissants. My mom and I got oatmeal croissants and my dad got a chocolate one. When we got on the train we were glad to find we were some of the first people on it so it wasn’t hard to find luggage space. After about two hours of watching the Italian countryside glide by, we crossed a bridge into Venice. We picked up some public transportation cards to use the “subway,” which is just boats on the canals here. It was really disorienting to walk out of the station and see a river where the street should have been. It didn’t take too long for us to figure out the public transportation system and we were on the boat ride to our apartment. In 40 minutes we got off and met our hosts. We understood why they picked us up from the boat because the alleys of Venice are nearly impossible to navigate. We walked for maybe ten minutes and took countless turns before finally reaching our place. The hosts left after showing us around. Turns out my bedroom is basically a closet Harry Potter’s size. I can’t even fit my and my suit case inside. However, it is made up for by the beautiful 2x2 meter courtyard garden outside of our kitchen.

With nothing but a croissant in our stomach we decided to head for food. We found a restaurant to eat at, but once we sat down and my dad looked on yelp we found some really bad reviews. We decided to just have a snack of bread, roasted potatoes, and sautéed vegetables. We then picked up some bananas from a little market and headed out for the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo, the world’s first ghetto. It took us a long time to get there because of how far it is from our apartment. Also, we were taking in the stunning views and trying to navigate, which has proved itself to be challenging. We found ourselves quite hot and stopped for some sorbetto to cool down. I got lemon and my parents both got mango.

When we finally arrived at the ghetto, we saw some of the barbed wire from WW2 was still on the top of the walls as a reminder of the island’s history. We also found some artwork hung on these walls in commemoration of the two round ups in the ghetto during WWII. We weren’t able to see much inside of the ghetto because the museum and synagogues were closed.

Eventually, we felt our stomaches rumbling again, as we hadn’t eaten much that day. We wound back through the streets and bridges of Venice. It isn't difficult to encounter some stunning views here. One of the best was down a relatively cute canal with a blooming tree (plants are rare here) as the sun started to set, adding a bit of color to the sky. The soft breeze made the moment even better. We continued to wander down alleys until running into a Basilica we saw earlier today. Here, there was a restaurant that worked for us. We were seated with a view facing a bridge with lots of people sitting and chatting that went over a small canal surrounded by pops of color from the flowers and a nearby painted building. The seagulls that filled the air and a nearby stout man playing the accordion did nothing but add to the Venetian charm. Fueled up with food we rushed back to our apartment so my dad’s phone didn’t die while navigating us through the labyrinth of alleys. Overall, we found the stone streets to be hard on the knees, our skin to long for a breeze, and perfect charm unique to Venice.