V E N I C E
We finally got to our stop. Our airbnb host was so sweet; she was up waiting for us to arrive and when we got to the street of our airbnb, she welcomed us in from the window. We got settled in and we went right to sleep. The next day, we woke up early and we had our complimentary breakfast in our airbnb and went out. We walked around Venice, admired the beautiful view of Venice, took pictures, saw some sights like the Basilica of st. John, but didn't really know what it was. We continued walking around, we saw cool local art shops. I bought 2 souvenirs, a painting and a magnet. Alexa petted a cat at one of the shops. We walked around some more, and grabbed a quick lunch. I had a calzone and chicken nuggets. After lunch, we all got gelatos. We also saw the Realto bridge, one of the oldest bridges built over the Grand canal in Venice. We continued walking and exploring and ended up at a restaurant, where I ate a canoli, and Romi and Alexa drank overpriced spritz. After this, we went to Dal Moro's Fresh Pasta place to go to get fresh pasta for dinner. I got tagliolini and bolognese, it was cheap and extremely delicious.
After this, we went back to our airbnb where we watched Ratatouille. I had never seen this movie before, so it was exciting to see it. It was one of the cutest movie ever. The third day, we went on an actual tour of Venice from 11 to 2pm. On the tour, we went to the Piazzo de San marco (st mark basillica), saw the bridge of sigh, the St Maria de Marcoli church, the only marble church built entirely of marble. We learnt of the different zones of Venice, and of the the best place to get food. After the tour, we went to a local restaurant, where we got pizza. While we were at the restaurant, it began to rain really bad, so we stayed extra long in the restaurant. When the rain died down a little, we went back to our airbnb. We took a nap, and after napping, it was still raining a little bit but we still decided to go to the grocery store to buy dinner. On our way to the store, we experienced what it was like to have high water flooding and walk on little bridges to pass over flood like a true Venetian. After getting some food from the store and because it was still pouring outside, we came back home, and had a movie night, where we watched "That awkward moment." After watching the movie, we went bed.
On our last full day in Venice, We took a day trip to Murano and Burano, 2 small neighboring Island to Venice. In Murano, since they are known for their glass, I bought a murano glass ring. Murano was so beautiful. The houses were so beautiful, and the sun finally came out, making the colors even more vibrant. We walked around murano for a while, got gelato and a little pastry, took some cool pictures, and headed for Burano. Burano was absolutely gorgeous, the houses were more colorful and the colors were more vibrant than in Murano. Burano is originally known for their lace, I wanted to get a piece of lace material but I did not really find anything I really liked for a cheap price. We took tons of pictures as we stared at the beautiful views. It is so cool to see how much joy colors can bring to someone. I kept thinking to myself how colors can make an ordinary thing extraordinary in its own unique way. After walking for a while, we were really hungry and so we went to one of the local restaurants in Burano, where I had a ravioli stuffed with fresh fish. It was a pricey dish but it was well worth it. We walked around some more, taking in the scenery, and we went to the dock to catch our boat back to Venice. On the boat ride back, we got the chance to see the sun set over the Lagoon. We wanted to go to Lido, but at this time, it was already too late in the night so we decided to go to Lido the next morning before we left Venice for Rome. On our way back to the airbnb that night, we stopped at a grocery store, bought some snacks and watched a comedy movie called "Everybody loves Somebody." After watching the movie, we retired for the night.
On our last day in Venice, we woke up early, packed all our stuff, and moved it down to the basement of our airbnb so we didnt have to haul our stuff with us to Lido. Our airbnb host was kind enough to let us keep our stuff here after our scheduled check out time. Going to Lido was a beautiful throw back memory lane for Alexa as she came to Lido last year when she came on this program. She pointed Romi and I to the place she stayed, and she took us to the beach. Sadly things have changed and were different now than the last time Alexa visited the beach. The restaurants that was known to serve fresh seafood were now closed, and the steps that takes you to a podium where you get to see the entire beach was closed. However, it was still memorable to see. We walked along the beach for a while, and enjoyed the peace that watching the ocean brings. We went out of the beach to grab coffee and some snacks, and then we went to the beach and just hunged out there for a while. It was beginning to sprinkle, and it was time for us to go back so we could make it on time to get on our train. We went back to the airbnb, caught a boat to the train station, got lunch at the train station and off to Rome we went. Venice was such a beautiful city. I loved the richness of culture in it, and the element of art in every little shop corner.
R O M E
We made it to Rome after about 4 hours of train ride. At the point, I had to leave Romi and Alexa and find my way to my airbnb to meet up with Corey, Alwin, Kate, Nicky, Lois, and Austen. Finding my way without wifi was hard, and I didn't also download the map of Rome on my phone because I didn't enough storage on my phone. I took pictures of the direction the night before but I took another set of updated pictures of the direction from Romi's phone before they left. I was walking to the airbnb, and unknowing to me, I took a wrong turn. A random person who I think came to me to ask for help ended up helping me and pointing me to the right direction. I ended up finding the airbnb, asking for help to make sure I was going the right direction. When I got to the airbnb, I didn't remember the name of host and so I went to a restaurant to get wifi. At the restaurant, I texted the group I was meeting up with and they met up with me in the restaurant. Unknowing to me, Corey and Alwin went to train station to meet up with me, but I didn't know this because they had no way to contact me and neither did I, but this was really nice of them. Finding the airbnb was an interesting adventure, and I was happy to not be alone anymore. The restaurant we ate at was called Sora Lia. The food there was absolutely amazing. Corey got one of the hugest calzone I have ever seen in my life. Everyone else but me got pizza. I got a huge burger which was so delicious. After eating, we went to the grocery store to stock up on food for breakfast and snacks. We all went home and went to bed as we were all exhausted after a long day of travelling.
The next day, we woke up and ate breakfast and I went to the Colosseum earlier than everyone else to meet up with my roommate, who is spending the rest of her Spring semester in Italy. We planned to meet up at the Colosseum, but it was hard for me to find her because neither of us had service. It took me about 2 hours to find her. I can confidently say that I know the roads leading to the Colosseum very well haha. I was literally going to the front of a restaurant to get wifi to connect with her (a place I renamed my wifi spot). Also since she was in a group tour it was harder to find her as they did not remain in one place. So I was walking to the places they had been to, minutes after they had just left and so I would have to go back to my wifi spot to see where next they are going to. Finally I found her and we had lunch together. I ate some of the pizza she got. It was really fun getting to see her and to catch up. I was so happy that this happened because we planned to meet but we were not sure how it would actually work out, but it worked out just fine. After lunch, her group had to leave so we patted ways, and i met up with the rest of my group. Also as I was walking around to find my friend, Anayeli, I ran into Romi and Alexa which was crazy considering the mass of people at the Colossuem at that time. It was nice to run into them, they offered some help for me to find my friend.
When I met up with the rest of my group, we went into the colosseum. It was so surreal being inside the colossuem, seeing that I learned and watched movies about it. It was so massive. We took pictures and imagined Russell Crow saying "Are you not entertained?!" After this, we went to get dinner at a place Kate's friend recommended. We were attended by a witty waiter who took a picture with us and gave us complementary digestive, yeah you might think I am talking about a snack no that's what I thought to but no, he gave us lemoncello, which is typical to drink after dinner in Italy. After this, we went to the Trevi fountain and made a wish as we threw a penny in the fountain. We then walked around some more, and ended up going to the Colosseum again and we got to see the Colosseum at night. It was as beautiful as it was in the day time at night, maybe a different kind of beautiful though. On our last day in Rome, we went to the Catacombs of st Callixtus, which was unlike what we expected because the tour felt rushed and we didnt get to see mummies, which I was kind of happy about. After the tour, we went to a gelato place called Fridigarium, a gelato store Kate's friend who used to live in Rome recommended. The gelato was definitely the best I have had in Europe. We then went to the Vatican museum. There were many people in the museum, inside this museum we went to Sistine Chapel, which was cool to see Michelangelo's iconic painted ceiling, which depicts some story from the book of Genesis, like the fall of man, creation of Adam, and removal from the garden of eden and so on, it was really interesting. After the Vatican museum, we went to the Roman Forum to see the ruins. It was pretty interesting to see this ancient monument and to be inside of it. After the forum, we went out for dinner at a restaurant right next to the Fridigarium. After dinner, Kate, Austeen and I got another fridigarium because we liked it that much. We walked around for a while and stumbled upon a bookstore. We went in and looked for a while and afterwards, we came back to our airbnb and packed for Cinque terra.
L E V A N T O
On our way to Levanto, our train got delayed for about half an hour and we were sacred that we were going to miss our connecting train. Thankfully, both trains were from the same company and we just took a later train. We arrived about an hour later to the airbnb than we were supposed to and so checking in was a challenge. Nicky, Corey, Alwin and Kate left Rome at 8 am and where supposed to get to Levanto at like three but many delays happened and they got to Levanto about 30 minutes after we got there. We did not realize that we had to check in at the office and so we waited outside for a while tried to get wifi and contacted the host. Everything got figured out and we checked in. After settling in and being super excited that we had a washing machine, we went out to get dinner at a seafood restaurant, where I tried mussels for the first time. Our restaurant was right by the beach, so after dinner, we went to the beach and walked along it for a while and played hopscotch. When we came back to the airbnb we had some issues with the hotspot box we were given to set up our wifi anf so we went to a bar, with the intention to get wifi and get a game plan for our hike the next day. After planing, we retired for the night. On saturday morning, Lois, Austen and I hiked from Levanto to Monterosso. At Monterosso, we met up with Nicky, Kate, Alwin, Corey, Nicky's cousin and her friend. We then began the actual cinque terra trail. We started with the hardest one, from Monterosso to Vernazza. In Vernazza, we grabbed lunch and continued hiking again from Vernazza to Corniglia. On our way down to Corniglia, it started to rain heavily. We went to the next village Manorola seeing that the trail from Corniglia to Manorola was closed. However, the rain was still falling heavily and so we decided to just come back to our airbnb as hiking in the rain wouldn't be so enjoyable and plus we wanted to catch the sunset. On our way back to the airbnb, Lois and I grabbed some grocery to make us all dinner. We dropped the stuff in the airbnb. We all rested for a while, I took a shower, and we went to the beach which is right next to our airbnb. We watched the sunset for a little while and then Corey and Kate decided to go into the ocean in their swimsuits in a 6 degree Celsius weather. After this, we all came back to the airbnb, Lois and I made spaghetti, panini pressed bread, and salad for dinner. It was so yummy and very inexpensive, which made it even more better. We all just relaxed and rested after dinner. I updated my blog, packed my stuff and we went to bed.
This has been an amazing spring break, and I cant believe it has now come to an end. We live for Bergamo, a place near Milan tomorrow to get to the airport to fly back to Bonn on monday morning. Not really looking forward to school. I have to switch from Vacation mode to school mode even though this entire spring semester is one big vacation. I currently have no plans for this upcoming weekend, other than catch up with work, but I will keep you posted
Bis spater.
Photo Gallery:
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| Venice |
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| Piazzo del san Marco (Venice) |
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| Venice |
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| Venice |
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| Murano |
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| Burano |
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| Roman Forum |
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| Levanto |
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