My roommates had to get up really early because their bus left at 8AM so I also had got up really early. The alarm went off at 6:30 but I finally dragged myself out of bed at 7:30. I got showered and ready to go to meet up with that girl, whose name I can’t for the life of me remember at 8:30. I probably should have asked her, but it was kind of at the point where it would be to awkward to ask and I hoping maybe she would randomly say it while telling a story or something. No such luck, but now I’m way beyond the point of being able to ask her name. All I know is that it starts with an M because she was looking at M pendants at one of the shops. Oh well.
So we took the bus into Venice and then got on a water bus to Burano, another one of the northern islands. The ride was long but oh, was it worth it. Burano is amazing. All of the houses are a different color. Right off the boat I saw this house and have now decided that I don’t need a castle or a palazzo, I need to live in Burano in this house.
Burano is famous not only for the pretty houses, but also for its lace. There were little carts and shops everywhere selling all kinds of beautiful handmade lace. I really liked the little picture ones.
There were also some really cool lace umbrellas; totally impractical given all the holes, but it’s so delicate you’d never want to take it out anyway. There were full scale ones but I thought the little ones were cute.
Every new turn opened up another street lined with so many different colors, definitely my kind of place.
So as I was typing up this post, my friend knocked on my window to see if I wanted to grab some dinner. I finally bit the bullet and asked her name. She was very gracious about it and told me her name was Mira and that she didn’t remember my name either but caught it during conversation. Okay, back to Burano.
Most unfortunately, the lace museum is under renovation and they didn’t move any of the exhibits to another building so we just wandered around the shops to see all of the pretty lace. In one of the shops there was a little old lady sitting in a chair making a doily. Her little fingers were moving so quick I could barely see them. It was very cool.
We ate some lunch at a little café and then headed back to the boat to go Torcello, another island near Burano. Torcello is kind of ghost town. A lot of the buildings are falling apart and it seems like it would make a great setting for a horror movie. They also have a bridge called the devil’s bridge, which is very appropriate. There’s a legend that says the devil came and built the bridge overnight. I’m still not sure why though.
There was a church and a few ruin-like structures, but that was about it for Torcello. We took the boat back to Burano and then to the lagoon. We grabbed some gelato on the way to San Marco square (mint chocolate for me) because Mira hadn’t had any yet.
At San Marco we parted ways because she didn’t want to go into the Palazzo Ducale or the Doge’s Palace. It was amazing inside. My neck is beginning to hurt from looking up at all of the awesome artwork on the ceilings of all these palaces and churches. I’m also running out of ways to say amazing, incredible, and awesome. The whole palace was awe-inspiring (found one more synonym)!
The first floor had a bunch of different rooms and some council chambers all painted in extravagant ways. The second floor had a lot of meeting rooms for the government bodies to make decisions. One of the rooms is massive! I think it’s something like the second biggest room in Europe, or it was at the time. Either way, it’s a huge room. It might have been the size of a football field, but I’m not totally sure. It definitely felt football field size.
Heading downstairs there are some rooms full of old-timey weaponry. The swords were so long it seemed ridiculous that someone would actually carry that around and have the skill to wield it. Down further are the prisons. This area was kind of creepy, but I did get to cross the Bridge of Sighs, which was really awesome. It’s called that because it’s the bridge the prisoners had to cross over to be judged or taken to their cell. The first picture is taken from the bridge and the second one is the bridge itself.
I walked back through San Marco to get to another museum and now I have to recant my previous statement about the huge pigeon. I saw at least five more pigeons today that could easily have eaten the one I saw yesterday. I don’t know what these things are eating but they’re freakishly huge and they don’t really move out of your way. It’s a little bit frightening.
At any rate, I walked across the square and went in to the Museo Correr. This museum was really cool because there were some miniature sculptures of the palace and giant maps of Venice at different times. They also had a lot of the different coins and the machines they used to make them.
After the museum I started walking in the general direction of Piazzale Roma to catch the bus home. On my way I found the distant cousin of the leaning tower of Pisa, the leaning bell tower of Venice. The picture doesn’t really show how drastically this tower leans. I’d be scared if I lived anywhere near it.
I eventually came across a waterbus stop and decided to take that to the P Roma before I got too lost trying to get back. The ride around the canal is so lovely I’m glad I skipped the walk this time.
When I got to the bus station, Mira was waiting there too so we headed back together. As got close to the airport (the place we have to change buses) we saw our other bus right behind us. We were happy that we weren’t going to have to wait. But then our bus stopped for no reason and the other bus whizzed past us and as we got off our bus the other one had stopped and left again. We were so mad! We ended up having to wait another thirty minutes for the next one. It was very frustrating.
We finally made it back and I came back to my room to relax for a little bit. Then Mira knocked on my window and so we went to get some dinner. Yummy, yummy pizza. Tomorrow is going to be an early day because I still have a few more things to see in Venice before I catch the train back to Christine’s! I’ll miss Venice dearly, but I’m excited for whatever I have planned next (I’ll figure that out tomorrow).
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