Weekend in Venice

My plans for the last weekend in March actually came together at the last minute. I had planned initially to go down to the Amalfi Coast, but a lack of detailed scheduling led to the decision to go to Venice instead. I traveled with Laura Krule, and we left early on Friday morning to get in as much as possible on the first day. The weather when we got there was terrific, and we dropped our bags off at the new branch of the Leonardo Hotel, where we were staying. We made a quick trip to the Jewish ghetto in order to get some food before setting out for the afternoon. In order to maximize our trip, we opted to save the museums for Sunday and explore the neighboring islands on Friday. We took the very awesome water bus to Murano, where we got to see glass being blown, which was incredibly cool. Our next stop was Burano, where all the houses are different colors. It’s quite a sight. Here a few photos to recap the exciting experience:

Laura

Me

Glass-blowing

More glass-blowing

It turned into a horse!

A second glass-blowing location

Burano

Burano again

Can you find me?

Orange!

Burano on the water
Friday evening we headed to the Jewish ghetto for services. They were very similar to the services in Florence, though the much smaller space was considerably more crowded and densely packed. Dinner was quite an experience. The local Chabad, who pray in their own space right across the ghetto from the synagogue, take over the kosher restaurant, GamGam, and offer a free Shabbat dinner for everyone and anyone who walks in. The restaurant was completely full and packed with people. Laura and I encountered a number of familiar faces and realized we were hardly the only NYU in Florence students visiting Venice that weekend. Leora was traveling with her sister Maya and her friend Tzippy, and there was an entirely different crew composed of Shayna, Jenn, Blair, and Esther. When we were being seated, I was separated from all of the NYU people because they wanted to sit males and females apart. As a result, I ended up outside sitting with all the Yeshiva boys stopping in Italy on their way home from Israel for their Passover break. It was pretty incredible sitting out on the water, especially with the energy of all the Yeshiva boys. There was so much singing and dancing around, and it was quite incredible. People actually had a hard time getting by us on the street. The food was great and eventually I meandered back inside to join with the girls, and scored some iced gelato dessert. We heard rumors that Piazza San Marco, one of the main squares in Venice, was flooded and that it was a sight worth seeing. After some encouragement and enthusiasm from certain members among our crew, we (Laura, Leora, Maya, and Tzippy) decided to head down there. It was rather cool, because they put down tables for people to walk on.

Saturday morning we got up and caught the tail end of services at the synagogue. As soon as services were over, we followed the rabbi over to the Kiddush, which was extremely lavish and entirely delicious. Laura and I ate lots of food and enjoyed all of it. The best part of the Kiddush was the rabbi leading Birkat Hamazon (grace after meals). This is a clearly respected man with a thick white beard who looks a bit like a wizard pouring all of his energy and spirituality into singing and leading the community. It was a very moving experience. Now after having eaten all of this food, we returned to GamGam for the actual lunch served by the Chabad. I managed to get a seat inside this time with all my female friends, and we met this British guy named Andrew who was finishing up three-month-long internship at the Guggenheim in Venice. We went walking with Leora, Maya, and Tzippy after lunch and ran into Andrew on the way. He showed us around and took us on a nice walk along the water. It was overcast but the weather held up for that day. After a nice, long, refreshing walk, we returned to the synagogue for afternoon services, followed once again by a lavish and more-than-filling amount of food. Once Shabbat was over, we headed back to the hotel and planned an early evening, in anticipation of daylight savings time and an early start the next day. We went to GamGam for dinner, and I had a wonderfully delicious steak.

The next morning, we checked out of our hotel and headed to the Doge’s Palace. We beat the lines and got in very quickly. This was the first time since my trip in January to Rome that I used my International Student Identity Card, but it got me a great discount that whole day. We opted for an audio guide (highly NOT recommended) and even got the experience of an angry Italian woman cursing at us when we requested our money back since the sound quality of the guide we had picked up only five minutes earlier was rather dismal. We walked through every room of the palace, and then proceeded to Venice’s other museum sights. At this point, it started to rain quite a bit, but we walked regardless through the streets of Venice. Our next stop was the Guggenheim of Venice, which I thought was really cool. I’ve seen a lot of paintings this semester, and this was a chance to see some more modern art which I found much more engaging. The last stop on our whirlwind tour was the Accademia, which we waited on line for half an hour to enter. For some odd reason, the cashier thought that we were entitled to free entry rather even than the EU student discount we didn’t think we’d get. The Accademia wasn’t nearly as exciting as we had hoped, and we covered the twenty-plus rooms in under an hour. On our way back to the area of the Jewish ghetto, we took a water bus and stopped at the Rialto for a quick photo. The water bus in the rain was pretty incredible, and I tried to get a few pictures to capture the experience.



Laura

The tables they put down in San Marco, minus the flooding




Back in the Jewish ghetto, we went to one of the two bakeries, where Laura stopped to get some pizza. The owner of the bakery was impressed when I spoke to him in Italian, and he directed us to the kosher gelato that had long eluded Laura. We found the gelato place and Laura was beyond excited. She was fully satisfied with her long-desired ice cream. We had some time before our train and I was happy to discover that I could go back to GamGam for another steak, which was equally excellent to the steak of the night before. My dining experience there was conducted completely in Italian, which was a lot of fun. That was our last activity in Venice, and we made our way quickly afterwards to the train station. I really enjoyed Venice, and I think that it is certainly one of my favorite places in Italy, alongside Rome and Cinque Terre. The city-on-water notion is quite unique, and on top of that, it’s also a beautiful city.