Sunday, July 27, 2014

Prego!

The week after our last final exam, six of us travelled to Italy for a week, spending three days in Venice and five days in Rome. We joked all week that the only Italian word we needed to know was "prego" because it seemed to be used for everything. It was a fun group and we had a great time exploring the cities and immersing ourselves in the culture during our time in Italy.  Here's a peek into our stay in Venice!

The group on our first day in Venice, in the center of St. Marco's Square.

Yet again, we awoke extremely early to catch our flight to Venice, leaving our building at 4:45 in the MORNING. Ugh. But I shouldn't complain, we were headed for Venice!

Although we were exhausted, we couldn't check into our rooms until later in the day so we ambled around the city, taking random turns, exploring the tiny streets of Venice. Of course, our hunger ended up being our guide and we followed it to Alfredo's Pasta to Go.

Alfredo's is a tiny, easy-to-miss pasta restaurant hidden on one of Venice's small alleyways. The way it works is that you order one of the three sauce choices and choose the type of pasta you want it on. There is no seating and the pasta is served in takeout boxes, so we took our pasta to a nearby bridge and enjoyed our pasta by the canal, watching the tourists and locals walk by.


Best pasta I had in Italy!
We found out about a free walking tour of Venice and rushed to get there on our second day in town. I highly recommend going on free walking tours of whatever city you are visiting, especially on your first day in the city. It's a great way to get your bearings of a place while learning about its history and a bunch of lesser known facts and favorites of locals!




Speaking of local favorites, our tour guide told us about a restaurant popular with locals, but unknown to many tourists so we decided to try it after the tour was over. It was in a quieter area and was clearly not meant for tourists as there was not an english word on the menu. Luckily, our waiter was kind enough to translate for us. Shannon and I both ordered pasta with cheese and pepper and, to our great surprise, a cook rolled out a giant cheese rhine, placed our pasta in it and scraped the sides to coat our pasta in cheese. He then placed it on a plate,sprinkled pepper on it and voila! Oh my goodness, it was delicious!!



One evening, we wanted to catch the beautiful sunset at the edge of the city so we raced through the streets to reach it in time. Things didn't go exactly as planned, as they usually don't, however, we ended up with some beautiful views and several comical memories from that journey.


We got a few confused looks while trying to pull this one off but it was worth it!


On our last day in Venice, we decided to make our way to Lido to have a beach day to celebrate Zack's birthday. They day started off wonderfully, as we ate gelato for breakfast (and continued in that fashion, having gelato twice more before the day was done). We took the ferry over to Lido and spent the afternoon relaxing on the beach and eating pizza before heading back to our hostel to pick up our things.







Venice was a very interesting and beautiful city. We had fun exploring the many, little streets that make up the city and coming across a canal every few turns. I think three days was just enough time to spend there, though, since it is rather small and touristy. On our last day, we boarded an overnight train to Rome, waking up the next morning in the Eternal City.

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