Trip to Venice

The day before yesterday we arrived back from a six day holiday in Venice, Italy. I've been there once before, when I was about two years old, but I don't remember any of it from that trip, so it was a nice surprise to see what Venice was like.

While we were there, we stayed for the first few nights with an airbnb host in Scorze, and then for the rest in Mestre with a different airbnb host.

At the first host's house, I tried a fruit called persimmon, picked from a tree in the garden, and it was delicious. There was also a pomegranate tree in the garden, and I was surprised at the quantity of fruit that came from both trees. Later on, I realised that there were pomegranate and persimmon trees in most people's gardens, and was then surprised at the quantity of trees, all with such ripe and healthy fruit, because in England the climate is different and I' not used to seeing so many of those plants.

During our stay, we did some really touristy things (Seeing as we were tourists) like going to see some of the famous things in Venice and eating gelatos ( Mostly yoghurt flavour for me). The famous things that we saw were Ca' Rezzonico, Rialto fish market, Ca' Pesaro, Pallazo du Calle and Corre Museum and a few other things.

Ca' Rezzonico is one of the things of my choice that we saw. It's an eighteenth century palace, and a very beautiful one. There are paintings on the ceilings, and chandeliers hanging from some of them. We saw a bed that belonged to someone who lived there, and a baby's cradle as well.

Ca' Pesaro is an art gallery with lots of paintings, all of which were painted in the seventeen hundreds, so they were very traditional. The building was large, so large, in fact that it was a palace.

The fish market felt just like an ordinary fish market, really, except that the people selling the food were all Italian, and there were really big swordfish at two of the stalls.

Pallazo Ducale, also known as the Doge's Palace wasn't very exciting, but it had dungeons where people had written their names with candle smoke. There was also a bridge called the Bridge of Sighs because everybody used to sigh as they walked over bridge to the dungeons.

We spent the whole day trying to get to Corre Museum, and in the end it turned out not to be worth it, because we were tired by the time we got there, and there were so many rooms that we kept thinking they should end any moment, but they didn't until we were really tired. Not everything in it was boring, but it wasn't as exciting as I hoped it would be.

We also went to a different art gallery which I really liked. It wasn't too big, and it had a nice collection of things including a sedan chair.

There are three famous Venetian islands that we went to, called "Murano", "Burano" and "Torcello".

The reason I chose to go to Torcello is because I heard that Atilla The Hun lived there for a while once, and I heard that his throne was there. Torcello, like I thought was a nice little island, full of of cats and postcards. The thing that surprised me about it is that the throne that is said to have once belonged to Atilla was left out, not in a museum, and not even with a barrier round it, so anyone could sit on it, deface it, and it would get worn down from the wind and rain. 

What makes it even more weird is that the throne is supposed to have been built in like the fifth century or something. That's like more than one and a half thousand years ago! At Torcello I bought three postcards, and it took me ages to choose them.

Burano is a town that has lots of pretty, colourful houses like in Balamory that everybody (Including me!) takes photos of. The island is famous for making lace. Everything is really expensive here, but I liked the ice-cream we bought.

Murano was the last island we went to on the day we visited the islands. It's famous for it's glass making skills. We went to a glass museum while we were in Murano and watched a video of how they made the stuff out of glass and it was especially fascinating how they made the beads and did the stretching. On the island there were some glass statues, and a ton of shops selling glass things, including sea horses, cats and chandeliers.

Rialto bridge is at the centre of Venice, so it's hard not to miss it. It's very big, and there are a ton of people on it, especially Americans taking photographs.

While visiting all the places we mainly had bread and cheese and butter, and other cold snacky foods like Italian wafers (They were delicious) , but a few times at home we had hot meals, like chicken and rice, chicken soup and seafood soup. Also, of course, we had pizza while we were out. In fact, we stumbled upon a great pizza place. It felt like the real thing, rather than some kind of tourist trappy place set up by a "Non-Italian, What-the-hell-is-pizza" person. I ordered an artichoke pizza. It was the best one I'd had in Venice. I hope we go back there.

We went to a few bakeries in the mornings, and at them I mostly ordered doughnuts, which are nicer in Venice than here. I also had a few caffe orzos because I like them, and they're easier to get in Venice than London. Thinking about it, we had a lot of coffees on holiday, way more than usual, because Italy is famous for coffee. The best coffee we had was one of the first ones, because it had cream on top and was kind of like granita. We had Caffe Zero, which is pretty good too, and a few other kinds of coffee, both hot, and cold. We had a granita too, which was supposed to taste like coke, and almost did. We also had tea and hot chocolate, which were at the first host's house.

......... And most importantly, we had gelato. Delicious, creamy gelato, better than any ice-cream! I had mostly yoghurt flavour because that's my favourite at the moment. I like mint too, but not as much. We had almost two doubke gelatos a day, but on the last day, and I think maybe the day before the last, we didn't have one.

Because Venice is a very beautiful place, and because we were on holiday, I took a ton of photos. I did two drawings, too. I was going to do more, but I couldn't really find many things, and the ones that I did find went wrong. The two drawings I managed to do were of a bridge that was near where we sat down, and in full view except for a tiny bit at the end, and the shutters of the windows at our first host's house.

Venice is a very expensive place because of all the tourists that come there, so it's hard to find places that have reasonable prices. It's also hard to find leather shops with gloves that aren't made in China. We walked around for ages looking for one, because I wanted leather gloves, and there are lots of leather shops there. We didn't find any. It's also very hard to find places that have masks sold for good prices. The reason why you'd want to buy a mask is because Venice is famous for making masks. I managed to find one with good prices, but the mask I bought was made in  China. Still, it's nice to have something to remind me of my trip to Venice, and to hang on the wall, and maybe even to wear. We bought some fridge magnets, things (pendants, a watch for my sister and a hair clip for our neighbour.) from a glass shop and some wine to take home.

In Venice, almost everyone speaks English, including the Italians. I think it's because most the tourists speak English; a lot of them are Australians, but there are even more Americans. And there are English people too, of course. I played a game called count the Americans, which was hard because there were so many. I must have got over a hundred, if you add up the scores per day. When you're counting Americans you have to see them, and hear them. Those are the rules. Sometimes it's okay if you just hear them, but if you just see them and don't hear them you can't count that, unless they're wearing something that makes it really obvious that they're American, like the lady we saw wearing a topless Yankees Baseball cap. You can usually tell if someone in Venice is American,  because they'll usually be holding a map, and talking loudly. They tend to be middle aged, and wearing caps. Also, they'll basically look American (Take into account breadth and general Americanness). As well as Americans in Venice, there are also lots of Italians, seeing as this is Italy we're talking about. Most of the Italians who were shopkeepers that we saw seemed very proud that they were Italian. That doesn't mean that they aren't nice, it's just something I noticed.

I liked Venice so much that I want to go back there very soon. The good thing is that I can go when I like because I don't need to be back for school.