Day 13: Last Day in Venezia (date of visit: 4/16/2011)

“Oh sob, oh cry, oh woe is me!” My time in Venezia has come to an end. I am now back in Manerbio. It’s good to be back, but I miss Venice already.

My day started bright and early at 7AM! I think I’m starting to get used to this getting up early thing though. I haven’t been on such a regular sleep schedule since high school. I’d forgotten what it feels like to wake up and not feel completely exhausted. Or maybe I just get better sleep here.

I took the bus into Venice and then hopped on a boat to go back to Murano for the glass museum. I’m really glad I did too, because it’s awesome. It’s amazing to me how early the making of glass was mastered and perfected. Some of the pieces were from the 3^rd century! My favorite piece was the glass “garden” display.

There were a lot of other glasses, cups, and plates that were pretty spectacular as well. I wasn’t supposed to take any pictures but I snuck some anyway. 

After the glass museum I took two long boat rides to get to the Ca’Rezzonico, which is another palazzo on the Grand Canal. The inside is gorgeous! The first two floors are furnished in the Venetian style with old furniture and art. As is standard with all palazzos, the ceilings are painted and the walls are elaborately decorated. On the third floor there’s an art museum with more beautiful artwork.

I finished walking through the monstrously huge house and headed back towards Piazzale Roma. I didn’t have a lot of time to spend in Venice today because I had to catch the 5PM train back to Brescia and I still had to go back to the hostel to gather my things. I grabbed a bite to eat and then enjoyed my last little wander through the maze of Venice.

I made it back to the hostel just fine, but of course had to get lost on my way back to the train station. The same bus that I took every day there and back decided that it wasn’t going to stop at the airport this time, which is where I always changed buses. I hadn’t really been paying attention so by the time I realized we didn’t go to the airport I had missed the other stop where I could change buses. The bus driver was really nice and told me how to get back to where I needed and I ended up making it back just fine. Mira was also on the bus to the train station so we chatted the rest of the way there.

I waved goodbye to Venice and got on my train “home”. I called Christine to let her know I would be back soon and we agreed to meet up for dinner. My phone was running low on batteries so I turned it off to conserve so I’d be able to call her when I got back. That turned out to be a terrible idea because European phones require a PIN number to turn on that I had no idea about. I also had no way to contact Christine. I ended up just walking towards her apartment when I got back and we ran into each other on the way.

We walked to a pizzeria called Regina Major where I ate the best pizza I’ve had so far. It just had basil and onions on top, but man was it good. I don’t know what kind of onions those were, but they were perfect. As we were walking home, the thunder and lightning started. We were hoping the rain would hold off until we got back but, alas, it did not. A little water never hurt anybody though so we just laughed as we got wet.

By the time we got back it was almost ten. We watched an episode of Lie to Me and then it was off to bed. I think tomorrow I’m just going to have a lazy day and relax, maybe go to the lake.