Italy Days Ten and Eleven: Adventures in Venice

On our tenth day we rode by train to our next hotel, the Delfino Hotel, which was only a short bus ride away from Venice. We arrived in the afternoon and went into Venice for a walking tour. 

The Grand Canal

The next day we had the entire day to explore Venice as we pleased. I was with four of my friends, and we had a few little adventures during our day... 


We decided to get all-day passes for the boats that go throughout the city (the Venetian version of a bus system). This way of transportation was pretty handy so that we could travel without having to walk everywhere. Once, however, the five of us were trying to get onto a nearly-full boat, and three of us were not fast enough in getting on and they would not let any more people on. So we were separated (without any way to contact the other group), and we hadn't said exactly at which stop we were planning to get off. My group decided we should head to the clock tower that we had talked about visiting next and hope that the other two were thinking the same way. We waited there for a while and eventually the others made it there as well :) 


Later we had another little boat misadventure when we got on a boat that looked a little different on the inside than the others we had been on. There didn't seem to be any reason why boats couldn't be different so we just found seats and rode along until a man came around to check tickets. Even though we had tickets, none of the other boats had asked for them, and we were a little concerned that everyone else's ticket looked different than ours. We showed the man our ticket, and he told us that ours were for a different company. We told him we were very sorry - we had no idea that other boats came to those boat stops. Then we began to be a little concerned since we didn't actually know where we now headed. A lady on the boat told us that this boat was with a cruise company, and we started worrying that we wouldn't be able to get off before it got back to the cruise ship! Thankfully, however, the boat made another stop and we got off as fast as we could even though we didn't know where we would be. After a bit of panicking we realized that we were at the exact same place where we had eaten lunch earlier - so everything ended up alright. 

All over the streets of Venice you can find masks for sale, some simple and others extremely elaborate. Venice is known for their annual carnival during which people wear masks and so they are sold throughout the year. After seeing so many of them for sale all day I finally caved in and bought a pretty pink one! Hopefully I can find an occasion to wear it someday :) 

I did enjoy our time exploring Venice, but one thing I did not like about it so much was how many tourists are there, particularly in comparison to people who actually live there. It doesn't seem like someplace one could actually live since it is so much on display all of the time.