"The Most Beautiful City Built by Man." (My Weekend in Venice!)

Northern Michigan is my absolute favorite place in the world.

Emily in Venice!

It's difficult for me to imagine a summer without going to Michigan Beach, sailing on Lake Charlevoix, and swimming in Oyster Bay, or a winter without the beautiful snow, half frozen Great Lakes, and delicious Woolly Bugger hot chocolate.  If I don't find an internship for this summer, I will be seriously considering moving up there for a few months.  I could teach swimming lessons, give yoga classes, and fulfill my life long dream of being a dock hand for Shepler's Mackinac Island Ferry Company while teaching myself to sail.

Grand Canal

Where is all of this reminiscing and fantasizing coming from?  This weekend, I found very similar place: Venice!

My dear friend and fellow international traveler and temporary European, Liz Swarthout visited last week.  After a few days of sightseeing, gelato, Italian class, gelato, Italian food, and yes, more gelato, we embarked on an adventure!

Venetian Traffic

We started early Friday morning.  We left the apartment at 7 to get to the train station before the bus strike started.  After some wandering, browsing, and shopping, we boarded the train and I promptly fell asleep.  Four hours later, we walked out into a very busy piazza.

Canal-side Churches

Venice is beautiful.  I think it's a lot like Mackinac Island, except with gelato instead of fudge, gondolas instead of horse-drawn carriages, and beautiful hand-blown glass instead of Petoskey stones.  Everywhere you look there are adorable shops selling jewelry and postcard-worthy views are around every corner.  I would love to spend a few months there, maybe after tourist season.

Rialto Market

Our first day, we found ourselves a bit overwhelmed, so we did the only reasonable thing and declared that day "Wander and Shop Day."  We followed the flow of people from the station to Piazza San Marco, stopping along the way for sandwiches, gelato, and a few pretty little things.

Amazing Architecture!

In my Italian class, we talked about the unique economic structure of old Italy.  Instead of one industrial center, everything was spread out and worked together in a web.  Rome is the city of government and metals.  Florence is the city of marbled paper and leather.  Milan is the city of fashion.  Venice is the city of glass and lace.  In Florence, I got my leather jacket.  In Venice, I had my eye's peeled for the perfect Murano glass watch.  After looking in countless shops, I found it.  The face is surrounded by the Venetian "Thousand Flower" glass design.  It's framed by gold gondolas that hold the muted silver leather strap.  I love it!

Beautiful!

Just another little canal

Two weeks before Ash Wednesday, Venice is overtaken by figures in elaborate costume and decorative masks for Carnivale, a historic festival that hid the identities of the guests so there was no distinguishing features to identify members of different social classes.  One of my professors explained the elite used it as an opportunity to be quite naughty and get away with it.  It's a huge festival with fountains of wine, parties, dancing, and beautiful art.  Masks are sold on virtually every street corner and we had fun trying on all the different colors and shapes, putting most of them back because huge feathers are not fans of backpacking as a method of transportation, but we did find a few that didn't mind the journey back to Rome.

Gondola's Galore!

After a successful day of shopping and getting used to our surroundings, we planed day two, the "Sightseeing and Photo-taking Day!"

We started the day by taking a Vaporetto (boat bus) down the Grand Canal from the train station to the tip of the main island.  We slowly walked back along the winding paths, being sure to take a few deserted side roads and being rewarded with picturesque canals, bridges, and churches.  By the end of the day, we had toured San Marco, wandered through beautiful courtyards, and crossed the three large bridges that span the Grand Canal.  We grabbed one last gelato before jumping on the train and heading back to Rome.  It was a wonderful trip!

You know what would make this blog post even better?
That's right! MORE PHOTOS!