Monday, November 19, 2012

V is for Venice and Verona!

Ciao!

Last post I left off with telling you about Rima and company's upcoming visit! They (Rima, Caitie's roommate at SLU-Laura, Ross, and Shannon) got into Rome on Thursday morning while Caitie and I were in class. We met up with them Thursday night, and Caitie and I crashed with them in their hostel without getting in trouble. The people that were sharing their hostel room must have been confused to see Rima and I cuddling together in the little hostel bed, but it was nice not having to go back and forth from school to downtown, and it gave us more time together.

Friday night we took them to our favorite restaurant, Il Chiodo Fisso, which is a restaurant that we went to with our school one of the first weeks. It has amazing four cheese gnocchi, which is what everyone got (and loved). We got gelato at Old Bridge, and took them around to our favorite bars, including the chocolate bar!

Saturday we hiked up the Dome of St. Peters. It has 551 steps, but it was so worth it for the view of the Vatican and Rome! We went on a free walking tour with them, and stopped by all of our favorite places, like the Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, and Piazza Navona. I know we have actually been learning something in class because Caitie and I knew pretty much everything that our tour guide said on the walking tour, and our friends were pretty impressed I think. They came to visit at a really great time because unfortunately, I think I was starting to get so used to being in Rome that I was taking it for granted a little. Seeing how excited they were to see things made me excited and want to make the most of the time that I have left in this amazing city.

View from the Dome of St. Peter's
Sunday, Rima and I went on a solo date in the morning to the flea markets while the others waited in line to see the Pope speak, and go to church. We had a successful shopping morning at the Porta Portese, which is the weekly Sunday markets in Rome. It's about a mile long row of tents with all kinds of things, which you can get pretty cheap when you barter with them. After this we went to a place called the Secret Keyhole on the Aventine Hill. It's next to the headquarters of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, which houses the modern Roman Catholic continuation of the Knights of Malta. On a green door, there's a little keyhole that offers a spectacular view of just the Vatican dome framed perfectly in trees. It's definitely off the beaten path, but if you're ever in Rome, it's worth going to. There's also a beautiful orange grove that we walked through on the way back to the metro. We stopped at some other places, the Circo Massimo, which used to be a race track in ancient times, and what visit isn't complete without a visit to the Colosseum. It was a great weekend! Especially knowing that we would see our friends again in two weeks-only this time on their main stomping grounds- in Madrid for Thanksgiving! 




VENICE and VERONA

This past Friday, I left for Venice with Caitie, Lynn, Catherine, and Nicole. We flew there, which was cheaper than taking the train. We took a water bus from the airport to the main part of Venice. We didn't know what to expect since we had been hearing that Venice was experiencing the worst flooding it has had in 22 years, even being deadly (the outskirts of Rome have been experiencing some flooding also). There was no flooding in sight, and the only signs of the flood were a couple of platforms that were being put away. So that was a relief, but I was a little disappointed that we missed out on all the excitement. I loved Venice, although a lot of people said they didn't like it, or that it was too touristy. It was just so unique and unlike any city that I had ever seen. There were no cars, even the emergency vehicles were boats. It was pretty touristy, but I didn't mind it. We did a little shopping as Venice is known for it's glass. It's also known for its masks for Carnevale, (or Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday). I'm excited to wear mine in St. Louis for Mardi Gras this year =).  Then we took a ride on a gondola! We brought a little bottle of wine, and had a fabulous time. All the other gondola's that we passed were couples, if that tells you anything, but it was well worth the money and something I can check off my Roman bucket list. Our gondola driver refused to sing to us, joking that if he sang, we would fall in love with him, and we were much too young for that.
One strike for Venice is that the food was not very good. We even ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe haha, which we were pretty excited about (I got my hands on a pulled pork sandwich!)
Nicole, Catherine, Lynn, Me, & Catie in Venice

                                                                             the only signs of flooding that we saw-raised platforms

A little hiccup in our travel occurred Friday night. Our friends left for their plane ride back to Rome, and Caitie and I stayed in Venice because we were headed to Verona on a train early the next morning. When we booked the hostel, we kind of forgot that Venice was an island, and we definitely underestimated how big it actually was. The cheapest hostel that we could find was on the main land, but of course we didn't look this up before we booked it. The train station was on the island. So we would have had to take the water bus to the mainland (which would have taken about three hours, not to mention how long it would take to wait for a bus and find our hostel), then turn around and do the same thing again very early because our train was to leave at seven. So Caitie and I decided to just stay on the mainland, walk around Venice at night, and forget about the hostel since that would be cheaper. We did this for awhile, but after we got cold, we had to stop in a bar for some beer to warm up. Then we decided we could just sleep in the train station since we had an early train. But we forgot that the train stations in Italy have open ceilings, so it was just as cold in there as it was outside. We tried to be troopers and made it until around midnight, but then we caved and got a hotel room a block away from the train station. It was a lot cheaper than we were expecting and I'm so glad we did it because a hot shower and a bed felt so nice! Not to mention we got a free breakfast in the morning. So all was good when we got the hotel room. We decided to take a later train to Verona and slept in a little later. We got into Verona around one and headed straight to the Casa di Giulietta (the house of Juliette).



Caitie's mom likes the movie, Letter's to Juliette, and said that she wouldn't let her back in the country if she hadn't made a pilgrimage to Verona (haha). We were expecting to see the letters below the balcony, but all that remained were the wads of gum that held the letters to the wall. They removed the letters because the city is starting to offer wedding packages for people to get married there (just like Vegas), so that was a little sad. There were lots of love locks, and it was very touristy, but we went on the balcony, and rubbed the breast of the Juliette statue for good luck in love. One of the student life assistants (SLA) at our school (they're like our RA's) heard we were going to Verona and told us to climb as high as we could, so climb we did. We found a beautiful overlook of the city, it was breathtaking! Verona felt like a tinier version of Rome, it even had a miniature colosseum. You could definitely feel how old the city was in the buildings though. Caitie and I took the night train back to Rome, and got in at about 6:30 am. It was a successful weekend. I only have one day of class this week and then I'm headed to Madrid, Spain, and Lisbon, Portugal!








Happy Thanksgiving! Eat extra turkey and pumpkin pie for me  =)

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