Finally, Venice

There hasn’t been much from me lately because I’ve been quite busy, first dealing with finals and then traveling. Won’t bore you with all the gory academic detail, pulling an all-nighter is essentially the same no matter what continent you are on. Instead I will skip right to the good stuff, my trip to Italy! I was only there for a week yet I saw so much (and took an amazing amount of pictures, 500+!) that I will split the posts up by city, starting with the city of my dreams: Venice.
Venice is the number one place I have always wanted to visit, ever since I was captivated by a pictorial in National Geographic at age ten. It has always held an aura of romance, mystery and exoticism in my mind, and it did no disappoint. A misty aqua fog surrounded the city during our time there. It was freezing and drizzly but that only emphasized the uniqueness of the canal city with its beautiful architecture, breath-taking churches and winding streets. We spent a lot of time just wandering the twisty side streets and bridges. This is the number one thing everyone tells you to do in Venice: get as lost as possible. Turning each corner we were presented with a stunning postcard picture, it took a lot of restrain not to photograph everything. It was almost unreal.
When we finally found ourselves among the slippery streets, we gravitated to La Piazza San Marco. By far the most famous point in the city, La Piazza is basically a giant square populated by extremely bold (and frightening pigeons) and dominated by the Basilica de San Marco. Built during the middle ages, the basilica was breathtaking inside and out. It is a mixture of European and Byzantine architecture with opulent marble floors and glittering mosaic ceilings. It was my favorite of all the churches I’ve seen this semester (including the Vatican).
In the afternoon, when we finished glutting ourselves on the mysteries of the city, we took a ferry to the Venetian island of Murano. The tiny village, just a fifteen minute boat ride from mainland Venice, is legendary for its glass blowing industry. The local’s techniques are passed down from father to son, and result in the most exquisite glass vases, figures and jewelry in every color and shape imaginable. We were able to watch a live glassblowing demonstration and spent several hours perusing the dozens of glass shops. The windows held everything from glass jewelry to intricate glass nativity scenes.
From Murano, and the rest of the area, it was clear that Venice’s number one industry by far is tourism. It’s an understandable issue, with a city so unique, but it does mar the picturesque effect somewhat. The winding Venetian streets are crowded with souvenir shops, all selling pretty much the same exact merchandise. As we were there in December, the crowds were thin, but I can only imagine how zoo-like the place must be in the summer. Even so, Venice, like all of Italy I found, was everything I had hoped while still more then I could conceivably have ever imagined.