As you saw in my last post, Sadie and I caught 3:30 AM shuttle to the airport in Budapest for our flight to Venice. Needless to say, we were pretty tired. From the shuttle, to waiting around in the airport, the plane and the bus to Venice, we tried to catch some Z’s, but it was difficult. By the time we arrived in the “city center” we were completely disoriented and dazed. Finding our hostel was even more fun in this confused state. If you have been to Venice, then you know that it is a labyrinth. The roads all curve in crazy directions, you’re pretty lucky to find clearly marked streets, and every other turn you take dead ends into a piazza or a canal. After what felt like forever, we finally made it to A Venice Museum, where all we wanted to do was take a nap, but unfortunately our room wasn’t ready. We dropped off our bags and went out to grab a bite to eat and start sightseeing. We had a delicious panino for lunch to sustain ourselves, then went to see some churches. First stop: Frari.
This church is home to some amazing Titian paintings, but as I don’t really have an affinity towards classical art, I was more drawn to the amazing choir stalls. They were in beautiful dark handcarved wood. Next, we visited Titian’s rival’s (Tintoretto) Scuola Grande di San Rocco. There are two halls—upper and lower—the first of which is not super thrilling, but when we came up the stairs we realized why this place was worth it—an amazing hall that is literally 360o of art. The carved wood stalls and the mosaic marble floors both take a backseat to the twenty or thirty overhead Tintoretto paintings. Probably one of the most unanticipated amazing things I’ve ever seen. We also stopped by the church next door to see a few more paintings, then headed back to our hostel for a short siesta. We needed it. When we were somewhat revived, we went to the Piazzale Roma to catch a vaporetto, or water bus, for our self-guided Gran Canal tour. With gondolas at around 80 Euro a pop, this is how you do Venice on a student budget.
We passed by many of the main sights of Venice—dozens of palazzi (palaces), the Ponte di Rialto, the Ponte dell’Academia and the Ponte Calatrava. Milwaukeeans should recognize this name—he designed the new wing of the art museum! Very cool to see his work elsewhere in the world. Our first views of the Gran Canal were pretty amazing and seemed to make the whole stress and exhaustion of the morning worth it. We ended up Piazza San Marco—ciao touristi! If you’ve seen someone’s pictures from Venice, chances are they were from this piazza. I’ve never seen people so excited to see pigeons! Anyway, we went into the Basilica San Marco, which was pretty amazing. The whole massive ceiling is in very intricate golden mosaic. We went upstairs and got to look out over Piazza San Marco, which was very cool and me feeling all of the romance that Venice offers.
We headed across the piazza to the Museo Correr, by which point the fatigue was definitely setting in. The museum is in an old palace, which was kind of cool, but the collections were less than thrilling. Sadie and I zipped through it. We got out of there in time to catch some of the sunset at the Ponte di Rialto—very touristy, but so beautiful! Although, I’m pretty sure a sunset in Venice would be beautiful from anywhere. We left to find a restaurant for dinner, having eaten lunch so early. Lonely Planet led us to a really delicious pizzeria—how I missed Italian food! We headed back to our hostel early to try to catch up on sleep. Unfortunately, we returned to a rave going on next to our room, and girls talking at full volume as we lay in our beds in pajamas. Right. Around midnight, I was woken up by my bunkmate to tell me I was snoring…sorry? I’ll try to sleep more quietly next time as to not interrupt your precious slumber.
The next morning didn’t win any points for our hostel, either. The staff never told us when breakfast ended, so when we came in an hour and fifteen minutes after it started, we were pretty shocked to find the food completely gone. Only one thing to do in that case: eat gelato for breakfast. So we did. Next stop after gelato: Palazzo Ducale back at Piazza San Marco. Basically, it was enormous and pretty exhausting. I really thought it would go on forever! The prisons were probably the coolest part because they are under the canal. We grabbed some lunch—spaghetti and clams for me—before going over to Teatro la Fenice, the birthplace of Venetian opera! This was one of my highlights of Venice. It’s a completely amazing theater, and even if it has been rebuilt (two or three different fires), it’s really cool to know that some of the first operas were played there.
After our visit, we wandered along the zatarre (kind of like a boardwalk, but marble?) towards la Chiesa di Santa Maria della Salute—a Venetian landmark that is impossible to miss. We continued our walk towards a live jazz band that someone from our hostel told us about. Apparently free live music in Venice is pretty unheard of, so we go lucky. As we dangled our feet over the canal, watching the sunset, sipping bellini and listening to jazz, I had one of those my-life-is-not-real-right-now moments. Sometimes life just seems bigger than you and you feel really privileged to be here. It was one of those moments. We enjoyed another leisurely pizza dinner, then headed to the train station for our “night” train to Venice. Ha. This was one of those times when you can’t believe your life because it is just THAT crazy. We were supposed to wait for about an hour at the train station, so we headed into the waiting room…which had a really creepy guy in it that kept staring at us…and it literally smelled like poop. I should have guessed then that I was in for a long night. Thankfully, our train got there early, so we could get on and start sleeping. At 1:15 AM, we arrived in Bologna, where we had to wait until 3:30 or so for our train to Parma. Originally, I thought chilling at the train station would be no big deal, but what I didn’t realize was that all the hobos sleep at the train station. I mean, a quite place, clean floor, and roof over your head…what’s not to like? I don’t think I’ve ever felt that alert at that time in the night. After what seemed like forever, we finally got on our Parma train—where we didn’t have real seats. Makes sleeping a bit difficult, but I think we got into Parma around 5, then had to wait for our train to La Spezzia. We were freezing, but we couldn’t go in the waiting room, because it was also full of hobos. Great. Thankfully, our train came in early, so we got to sit on the train for about an hour before it actually left the station, and we had real seats! It’s amazing how the little things in life can make all the difference.
Honestly, I have no idea what time we got to La Spezzia, but I know we had to buy our Cinque Terre park passes and then wait an hour for the train to Corniglia. (Cinque Terre, meaning five lands, is a national park that groups five small towns.) We finally made it to our hostel around 10, so we checked in our stuff, but we couldn’t stay there because we arrived at the beginning of lockout. So, as in Venice, that meant it was time to go exploring! I had to stop for some espresso first, so we went to…well, the one of the only cafes in town. After getting some caffeine, we checked out the Corniglia viewpoints. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many backpackers in my whole life. A whole different breed of more-hardcore-than-thou tourists that reminded me of climbers—except that a lot of them were older. Anyway, the views were pretty amazing, but paled in comparison to our next stop. We took the train over to Vernazza, where we took everything in by lazing in the sun and enjoying a pasta lunch in the main piazza. I got pesto (delicious!), which is apparently a regional specialty. Mmmm. We wanted to head back to our hostel when it reopened around 3, but we accidentally took the train in the wrong direction, so we ended up in Monterosso and had to wait an hour for the next train back to Corniglia. We chilled on the beach and even dipped our feet in the water! The water was pretty freezing, but the fact that it was actually warm enough to take our shoes off and dip our feet in was pretty exciting!
When we got back to Corniglia, we rested and took showers. I really wanted to back to one of the Corniglia viewpoints to watch the sunset, so I got ready to go after my shower and headed over there. Sadie was pretty tired, so she took a little bit longer waking up from her nap and met me later. The sunset, which I BARELY caught, was completely worth it—one of the best I’ve seen. Once Sadie caught up with me, we went on a mission to find some dinner. We were staying in a very small, sleepy town, so our options were limited to like…one. No matter though, I ordered cozzi ripini, or stuffed mussels, which were incredible! One of the best things I’ve eaten, hands down. After dinner we went back to our hostel for a peaceful night of sleep, which was all the more appreciated after the previous few nights.
Our next morning in Cinque Terre, we had our sights set high on taking the costal trail to the next town over, Manarola, as well as the town after that, Riomaggiore. Before we set out, I grabbed a pastry and an espresso from the same café in Corniglia—gotta love routine. The trail was completely amazing, as evidenced in my pictures. Before we walked into Manarola we took a “dangerous” trail down to the water to get some sweet views. Frankly, stairs are not a part of my idea of “dangerous.”
Once we got to Manarola, we chilled on some rocks in the marina for a bit just lounging in the sun, then decided to get some lunch. We had delicious bruschetta from a restaurant that had New Glarus stickers on the door. Wisco represent! After lunch, we made our way over to Riomaggiore on the famous Via dell’Amore. I have to admit, it was so sickeningly adorable that it was vomit worthy. There were HUNDREDS of locks on the fences all along it. I’m not really sure where this tradition comes from, but I got the feeling that it has something to do with locking your love up? We saw quite a few locks on the bridges of Venice, too. When we finally got to Riomaggiore, we walked around a little bit and then went to the beach to hang out and catch some rays. Personally, I didn’t find Riomaggiore to be as nice as a lot of the other towns we went to because of its size, but it was pretty nonetheless.
We decided to head back to Vernazza to watch the sunset and get some dinner. On our way back towards Vernazza, Sadie and I both realize that we really needed to use the bathroom, but we were really struggling to find a bathroom that was not a hole in the ground. We decided to go up to the castle in Vernazza to see if there was a bathroom…sure enough, there was, but only for castle visitors. We sucked it up and paid our three euro to primarily use the bathroom and secondarily see the castle. Sadie took the key and walked in…bummer…another hole, but we sucked it up and used it anyway. The castle was actually really worth it. We went up the tower and got great views of the town. We came back down and sat on the rocks in the marina to enjoy the sunset. Afterwards, we headed to a Lonely Planet recommended restaurant in Vernazza for dinner. The special was seafood spaghetti for two—fortunately Sadie and I were both thinking the same thing and decided to get it, because it was amazing! Perfectly fresh pasta, seafood right out of the water, and local La Spezzia red wine to accompany it all. Yum! When we tried to head back to Corniglia, we had some problems with the train. They were running late, so had some time to kill. We decided to hit up a nearby bar for cocktails, but as we finished our drinks, it was pretty apparent that it was closing.
We got out of there and went back to check on the trains. Apparently the train we thought was late got in earlier than expected, because we missed it. Oops. We had more time to kill before the next train, so we went to a nearby playground to channel our inner children. I think we both realized that we can no longer handle those merry-go-round things, but it was pretty hilarious. We FINALLY got a train back to Corniglia, but had to walk into town (about 10-15 min up the hill from the train station). Thankfully we were near a couple of other people, so we weren’t totally alone because it was kind of creepy. Major plus was the stars, though. Such a clear night and completely dark! I was pretty sad to leave Cinque Terre the next day, but I know I will be back. Favorite place I’ve ever been!
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