VENICE, ITALY-
Wow, where to begin? I have been meaning to update this blog for such a long time now and I am so happy that I finally have the time to share with you all some of the wonderful experiences that I had over spring break. To recap I was able to travel through Italy for about two weeks. I went to Venice, La Spezia, hiked through Cinque Terre, and also visited Bologna, Puergia, Rome, Pisa, Florence, Naples, and Capri. I then took a five hour train ride to Ancona, which is on the east coast of Italy and from there an over night ferry, or what seemed more like a smaller cruise ship to Split, Croatia. I got back to London on April 19th and five days later I was on a plane to Switzerland where I was able to skydive over the Swiss Alps! Anyway, life abroad has been fabulous! I can't believe it's almost May... that means I leave in a month from now!
I must say that I am extremely proud of myself for only bringing one large backpack and a medium sized duffle bag for two and a half weeks. I remember last summer when I went to New York and Boston for five days I felt as if I brought my whole closet. So I guess studying abroad has made me condense! I hope I can stay like that when I come to the states.
The night before we left for Venice I didn’t get much sleep. I was up correcting a paper on Journalism of Attachment, packing, figuring out internships stuff and what my plans are for the summer. I woke up early the next morning and finished packing, printed/handed my paper in at school, went to the post office to mail my Dad a birthday card, then went back home to pick up my stuff and back to campus again for class at 1 until about 4pm.
Right after class we all got dinner to go at the caf and walked to Strawberry Hill Station to take the train to Gatwick Airport. We didn’t get to Venice until about 11pm that night. We took at taxi to the hotel we booked last minute because we thought sleeping in the airport probably wouldn’t be the best idea.
The next morning we got up early and walked about a mile to the train station with all of our stuff. It was hot and our luggage was incredibly heavy… However, it was only the beginning of having to walk long distances while carrying what feels like 50 pounds on my back and 20 pounds on my shoulder.
We finally made it to picturesque Venice. It was absolutely beautiful and I’m happy it was our first stop in Italy. Every picture I took on my camera felt like it was post card quality. This was partly to do was my awesome photography skills and high tech camera settings. Haha of course I’m kidding, clearly it was the scenery but I am going to assume you all knew that.
We took a boat taxi to Lido, an Island off of Venice. With all of our stuff we basically walked around the whole island, which took about 20 minutes before we made it to our hostel. Later we found out that had we of just gone straight instead of making a left. The hostel would have only been a five-minute walk down the street!
After we got settled in we headed straight to the beach. It was really nice out, probably about 65 degrees if not warmer. However, this was definitely not hot enough for the locals who all gave us strange looks as we passed them in our flip-flops, carrying our beach towels, and wearing our swim suites.
For dinner we all had pizza for the first time, it was better than what I had expected and my expectations were high being that we were in Italy of course! Then we got gelato right after and it was wonderful.
The next day we went to St. Mark’s Square and went to a church that had a ceiling covered in millions of tiny gold squares. It was breathtaking especially when the sun would shine through the windows making all the gold squares shimmer.
On Sunday we took the water taxi to the train station and made it by literally one minute! Next stop, Bologna and La Spezia!
-Britt
SHOUT OUT: To my lovely travel buddies who made this the best spring break trip ever!
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