so, yeah. i'm amending my honeymoon plans. venice is SO BEAUTIFUL. and, i feel, more romantic than paris. and venice is exactly as you would imagine it. beautiful green water, gorgeous big bridges, quaint little bridges, tons of little shops, amazing craftsmanship. and GONDOLAS!
of course, getting to venice was a looong trip. we got a great airfare deal, 87€ round trip for carnevale. (the second cheapest we found was about 200€) of course, then there's the 6€ airport check-in fee because i don't have an EU passport, and then another 8€ because i don't have a european debit card. so, 100€ for plane ticket, still great deal.
the problem is, the plane flies out of beauvais. which is about an hour and a half from paris. and you have to take the shuttle bus, which costs a ridiculous 13€ one way. and then you fly into trevisio, which is 5€ and 40 mins away from venice. so, it's seven hours from paris to venice, and 136€.
Life Tip: Just take the train, kids. You leave from the city center, you get into the city center. There's no security, you can bring as much liquid as you want. You get to the train station 20 mins early and walk on the train. The train stops and you get off. Don't worry, this isn't the last time I'm going to complain about this.
and the public transit system in venice is kind of painfully slow. it's all waterbus, which can't be avoided, seeing as venice is made up of a bunch of islands. but there so slow. which is fine if you're not in a hurry and it's daytime and it's nice out, but venice was cold. for some reason i thought it would be warm, and i forgot my gloves and brought a decorative (as opposed to warm) scarf. pretty sure my fingers stopped working for a bit.
but it was SO BEAUTIFUL. here, look at some pictures:
venice, taken while i was on the waterbus over from lido (island our hostel was on)
aaah the water
i'm bad with churches.
ponte rialto, the oldest bridge spanning the grand canal
picture perfect.carnevale means a ton of masks and period costumes. i really want to dress up someday. people go all out.
masks masks masks!
i'm going to go back someday and be all decked out. the tourists will follow me taking my picture. it will be fabulous.evidently, the tradition started hundreds of years ago when all the venetians would dress up and do crazy things because they're masked and you don't know who they are. today, in venice they mainly keep up with the dressing up tradition and in the rest of the world carnevale is mainly the doing crazy things. the kids in the paris program kept expecting a rio-type carnevale, with drunks running around naked, but that totally wasn't the case. lots of masks and confetti and gorgeousness!
i got my face painted!
and i also got a gorgeous mask
that i look really creepy in. alicia's mask just looks pretty.
on sunday we randomly ran into a boat parade! alicia and i were on our way to the bus depot to drop off luggage in lockers when our waterbus was like ok last stop, and we were like um...we have no idea where we are. turns out, the waterbus stopped because the canal was closed off for a PARADE:
SO COOL.on sunday we took a gondola ride
unfortunately, my camera had died before and i didnt get any pictures. and when i got back i couldnt find my charger. i've gone through both of my camera batteries (i got an extra) and now i'm really sad that i lost my charger/didnt take it to paris. but i'm so sure i packed it....Quote of the Day:
Sarah: If these pigeons start going after my gelato, it is on.
St. Mark's square has, in all likelihood, the highest pigeon density in the world. here, look, they're eating this small child:
maybe more when i steal some peoples pictures
1 comment:
Hahaha, that last picture is the best. These posts are so much better with pictures. :)
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