Lost in Venice, Found in Verona
Exploring Venice
Venice was one of those places where you can have an amazing day and still spend half of it wondering if you know where you are or what you have or have not seen.
We started our day with what felt like a mission to see every landmark in Venice. Me, Seth and Myles split off from the rest of the group after the great tour and lunch from Raney and Gary throughout Venice till we got to the plaza, Piazza San Marco. That was the group's rendezvous point. We wandered through the streets, crossed many bridges, explored the canals, and stopped at multiple Catholic churches along the way. We had to check out as many as we could find in the given 3 hour free roam part of the day. They were all massive and impressive with lots of detail and character.
(The first and second photo are the same church, the third is a separate church)
Eventually, we discovered one of the less exciting parts of exploring Venice, some areas require you to pay to enter, such as the bathrooms. We found out that if you want to use the bathroom, it's a €1 fee or else you purchase something from the store/restaurant. In which many didn't have toilet seats in them for whatever reason. We even ended up wandering into some sort of Arabic world history museum, thankfully we didn't have to pay for that.
Then there's the gondolas.
We ended up sharing a boat with a group of Americans who had apparently been to Venice multiple times and have seen everything there is to see. They told us all about the hidden gems and churches, which we never got to because they left out the part of how to get to them precisely.
Except this wasn't exactly the romantic gondola ride you see in all the pictures, that apparently Jeremy A and Jeremy B got to experience together.
This boat ride was more or less just like public transportation through the canals/waterways. It took us from one section of the islands to another. Which was still pretty cool, that was until we discovered we could have saved the €2 per person fare by simply walking about another 100 feet further down the winding paths and crossing a bridge to the same place we were going. Let's just say we took the bridge on the way back. The fee collector/gondolier on the boat wasn't exactly a pleasant lady. She was quite grumpy and strict, she got mad at Seth for simply not mishearing her and stepping on the boat before paying. Honestly tho the grumpy lady and €2 fee was worth the story and views or as the kids at the camp like to call a nice view in Italian “bella vista”.
Gelato and St. Mark’s Basilica
Of course, no trip through Italy would be complete without the gelato stops. Almost every time we saw a gelato shop, it seemed like a good idea to stop and at least consider buying some. When you're walking around all day through a 30 degree maze, there really is no such thing as too much gelato. The gelato is very good no matter where you stop, even if it's considered the “fake gelato” tourist trap.
On the other hand, one of our bigger disappointments came from when we reached the St. Mark’s Basilica (Basilica di San Marco in Italian) the massive church in the plaza. We were hoping to see the inside after seeing what the outside looked like, unfortunately tickets were sold out for the day. So we had to settle for seeing it from the outside. That simply just means another trip to Italy down the road. Which Myles and I have covered, we joked about making plans to move to Italy after all we've seen and done through the days here.
(this photo shows the side/backside of the Basilica, unfortunately not the front)
Seth and his souvenirs
It was funny because on Sunday Seth named me the wanderer, while we were at a museum that day I kept straying off from Seth and Myles to go visit other parts of the museum. Well now it was his turn to become the wanderer. Almost every store we passed, we would turn around and notice Seth was missing, only to find he’d be in the nearest shop looking for souvenirs. The funny thing too was that almost every store was basically the same with the same items. While on the way out of Venice when it was time for Verona, Seth would stray away from the whole group to go to the same old tourist stores. At one point we had stopped for probably around 15 minutes because we thought we had lost Seth, just to find out that although he did stop at yet another store, he somehow ended up way ahead of us and he was not in fact lost, we as a group were.
Venice is a labyrinth
This takes us to the part of after exploring as much of Venice as we could on our own free time, it was now time to rendezvous as a group. That's when we discovered that leaving Venice can be just as confusing as exploring it. Venice really does feel like one giant labyrinth. Especially with the way it's made. The narrow streets, twists and turns, bridges everywhere, dead ends out of nowhere. Some pathways feel more like long, tall hallways rather than actual streets. You can walk one way thinking you're on par for your destination just to realize you've somehow ended up somewhere completely different. You could almost say it feels like Maze Runner. It took some redirections, stopping, waiting and checking maps but eventually we made it.
Verona
After a long day in Venice we then headed to Verona for the evening. After Venice, Verona felt a little different, but it was just as beautiful. We went to see the colosseum (Arena di Verona) located in the central Piazza Bra (the main plaza area). It is the third largest surviving Roman amphitheater in Europe. It was cool too because they had a ton of Egyptian decor set up all around outside it, which Gabriel then told us, it is for an upcoming Opera performance taking place in the colosseum. Alongside the colosseum we wanted to also see the original Romeo and Juliet house which is also in Verona.
One problem though, by the time we made it to Verona, unfortunately both locations we closed.Although they were both closed. Gary and Raney took us to a wonderful location for dinner with delicious food, right outside of the colosseum and in the center of the plaza. We even got a little bit of live action entertainment to go with dinner (the street vendors and performers).
After dinner, we walked down a beautiful area, with an almost marble-like paved tile street with shops and of course gelato shops. Which is why we came down this street. We had a little gelato stop. This area almost felt like walking through an indoor mall although you were outside and instead of A/C, you had 25 degree humidity. In some ways it reminded you of Bourbon Street in West Edmonton Mall. Just with a European/Italian twist on it.
Verona at night was surprisingly lively. Even though it was getting late, the city still felt very much alive. The lights, old buildings, restaurants and people wandering through the streets gave the place a whole different atmosphere.
End of the night
After a long, very hot day exploring Venice and Verona, we finally headed back to San Fermo. By the end of the night, the heat and walking had caught up with us. I think Jeremy A and Marike said they tracked around 20 000 steps or more. At that point, nobody needed convincing to go to bed. No banana grams and dutch blitz this evening. We were exhausted.
Venice may have made us wander.
Verona may have made us stop and stare.
But both gave us a day and an experience we definitely won't forget.
Dawson Bignell
