"We were under the Bridge of Sighs...Under Italian Skies"

Buongiorno readers!! Actually, as I'm writing this at 6:30 pm I should say, Buonasera!  I have returned from a trip to Milan and Venice, all in one piece, and lived to tell the tale! Does that sound a bit dramatic? Well, going into the trip I was a tad concerned for my well being, seeing as all people say about Italy nowadays is "beware the gypsies!" and "beware the men!" However, the worst things I came across were hagglers, solicitors, and the Venetian transportation police, which were all quite terrible actually but I managed to handle them. Am I getting ahead of myself and confusing you? Sincerest apologies.  Let me back track a little and regale you with my story in full: Two girls on a mission to experience Milan and Venice on as cheap a budget as possible, and almost succeeding.

Wednesday night Lydia and I took our first Ryanair flight to Milan, and other than its 45 minute delay, we had no problems and arrived safely in Bergamo at about 11 pm, from which we took a bus to Milan City Centre and then navigated our way through the city at one in the morning to our hostel.  After a few wrong turns here and there, we finally found The Monastery Hostel and retrieved our bed sheets (yes, they needed to be given to us) and settled in for the night to catch some sleep before a big day of touring. Or so we thought.  Unfortunately, two of the men with whom we were sharing a room had the loudest and most awful snores I have ever heard.  I might have gotten 20 minutes of undisturbed sleep, at best.  It was atrocious.  We awoke completely unrefreshed and dehydrated but determined to enjoy our day in Milan.  After having some croissants, tea, and buying water bottles from the hostel vending machine, as there was no water provided at breakfast (?) we embarked out into the city to see it by daylight.  I have to say, Italy just made me smile.  The bright colors of the buildings, with wrought iron balconies and plants in the windows, were endearing.  We stumbled across a street market and wandered around with all the locals buying fish and fresh meat, flowers, clothes, fruit, and everything in between.

 We wandered the streets of Milan and finally found our way to Piazza alla Scala, where the Teatro alla Scala is, the Opera House.  We couldn't go in, but it was neat to see regardless. In the center of the piazza is a large statue of Leonardo DaVinci, who had quite an impressive beard!

We wandered further and eventually stumbled onto the Duomo, quite unintentionally but what we wanted to find! It was STUNNING. Oh my goodness, it really is a sight to behold.  My pictures will not do it any justice.  The details in this building are just incredible.  Milan isn't really that exciting, and doesn't have much to see as it's really just a city for shopping and banking, but this Duomo is well worth the trip.  Inside is just as incredible.  Each stained glass windows tells parts of the Bible.  I couldn't take any photos inside but the details of these windows were beyond astounding.  Lydia and I were having fun playing "Name that Bible Story" as we walked down each aisle. 






Outside the Duomo is a large piazza where people try to sell you bird seed for the pigeons and string bracelets and umbrellas and stupid glowing bouncy balls.  It really is detracting from the experience to be harassed while your trying to take in a gorgeous church.  I had to wander out, take this picture as fast as I could, and get back to the entrance so I could avoid the hagglers.  The police need to cut down on this more efficiently because it's really aggravating and honestly leaves a negative haze over the whole experience of the city and country, as we would see this again and again.

After the Duomo we headed off in the direction of Castello Sforzesco, the old castle of Milan which is now museums.  We paid a total of 1.50 euro for this museum, which is pretty darn cheap, and our first spending of the day!  They had an excellent exhibit on ancient Roman artifacts, medieval tapestries, furniture, and musical instruments, which as a musician was especially interesting.  But, again, upon entering the castle area, we were approached by hagglers.  Now, I must put on a pretty mean face, and I ignore them completely, which helps, as they didn't really bother me, but Lydia just attracts them and they harassed her much more.  We rushed on through though, and soon were safe in the museum.




 After the castle we headed off, through the Chinatown of Milan, to the Cimitero Monumentale, an enormous cemetery with the most incredible headstones I have ever seen - and you know I've been seeing many!  I totally went crazy here, and I just have to put up these pictures for you to see.  They are insane.  A bit gaudy, some were incredibly creepy, but on the whole, just awesome artistic pieces. Enjoy!

After getting our fair share of morbid thoughts, we left the cemetery, grabbed a snack from a cute little Italian woman's store, and headed back to the hostel to get some work done for a while, as it was between the hours of 5 and 7, aka the stores and museums have all closed and the restaurants haven't opened, so there was nothing for us to do.  Later we grabbed pizza and fried rice, cheese, and ham balls for dinner - cheap but tasty! Then we were in for the night, watched two movies, and then were off to bed for another unsatisfying but thankfully snore-free night.  We awoke in the morning and headed to the train station to embark onto Venice!

I was wary going into Venice.  Not because of any negative stereotypes I'd heard of, but merely because Venice is a place to which I've always wanted to go and have always expected to absolutely love, and I was worried that for some reason it would disappoint me and my hopes would be dashed. However, I can with immense joy tell you that my hopes were not dashed, but fulfilled and exceeded in every way.  I found a quote that quite describes it by Fran Lebowitz: "If you read a lot, nothing is as great as you've imagined. Venice is -- Venice is better.”   Honestly.  I walked out of the train station and my breath was taken away, despite the freezing temperature and light, windy rain.  I was giddy with excitement that I'd finally made it to this incredible city.  ...And then hagglers appeared on the steps, which dampened my spirits only slightly, and I quickly rushed past them. THEY NEED TO DISAPPEAR.  I was determined they would not ruin Venice for me, and they mainly stayed at bay the rest of the trip, thank goodness!

 We hopped our first waterboat taxi to our hotel - yes, HOTEL - Hotel Tre Archi, which was actually perfect.  The decorations were all gilded-style and pink and floral and girly and wonderful.  We stepped into our room (after having a little trouble opening the door; apparently you have to pull THEN push...what?) and burst into happy laughter at what we beheld: a sofa, a desk and mirrow, a cabinet with a minifridge inside, a tv, a private wonderfully equipped bathroom, and a STAIRCASE because yes, our bed was on a loft - our KINGSIZE bed!!

After staying in hostels and communal rooms so much, this was palatial living, and it was incredible, and for a steal of 18 pounds a night! I don't know how that is possible but it is.

And out our wood shuttered windows was an absolutely wonderful view. Why, hello Venezia!







We ditched our stuff, put on a few more layers since it was horrid weather, and headed off on the boat to San Marco Piazza.  Since we got there late afternoon, we were riding down the canal at dusk and soon into the dark, which was really pretty to see all the lights along the canal. San Marco was quite a sight, and we were excited to get back to it the next day so we could actually go inside.  We spent the evening shopping and finally settled on a restaurant for dinner.  I had lasagne as my first real Italian meal, and it was quite yummy!  We split a bottle of red wine and had a long evening dining.  I got tiramisu for dessert, which was great as well.  Living was good in Venice on our first night! We went back to our hotel and had an actually good sleep for the first time in days and woke up refreshed and ready to see the city by daylight.

Saturday began with wandering around our area, going into a few shops, and as what would prove to be the pattern of the day, churches.  Our first stop was St. Lucia's, where her relics are, which were really impressive and a little disconcerting.  It was a really lovely church overall with some gorgeous paintings, which would also prove to be the pattern - lots of paintings but not much stained glass, or even windows.  I didn't take any pictures of the interiors of the churches we saw, sometimes because it wasn't allowed, but mostly because I was enjoying looking too much and didn't want to disturb the sacred space, so now you'll just have to go to Venice and see the insides for yourself!!

We walked all the way from our Northwest corner of the city to the Southeast corner of San Marco Piazza, following the signs throughout the city.  Walking around Venice is why you go there.  Around every corner, down every block is a cute building, an amazing church, a shop, and the smell of pasta sauce wafting through the air.  I was in Heaven.  Really, a day could not be spent any better.  I love water, I love boats, so this city was really perfection for me.  The houses and buildings of Venice appear to be almost in a state of disrepair, but that's what makes it charming.  It's old and well used.  Very well used. Venice was bustling!  I never felt unsafe or lost or at risk at all - and I never felt rushed, which was really nice.  We could walk along at our own pace, take in the surroundings, and enjoy the city, as everyone else was doing the same thing. 

We did finally make it to San Marco at around 3 in the afternoon, and the inside proved to be as amazing as the outside - every inch covered in mosaics.  After seeing San Marco we stopped into a cafe and I got a cannoli and calzone, both delicious!

Then we went off to admire the famous Bridge of Sighs, which Lydia and I had been singing about all weekend from a song in Little Women the Musical, which is what the title of this post is.  It was a lovely view, both into the city and all the bridges lined up, and out of the city toward the open water. 

Then we went to see Santa Maria della Salute, the giant domed church on the canal of which Monet did a painting that I looked at in my Impressionism class so I was really excited to see this.  The inside had some lovely paintings, but the outside I personally liked better, and preferred the insides of some other churches we had seen that day more.

Now, everyone we had talked to said they didn't pay for transportation in Venice.  The first day we paid for tickets for the water taxis, but after noticing many people not swiping on, we decided to try and ride the boat without a ticket.  So we got on the taxi and headed in the wrong direction toward Lido, a different island and final stop and a place where you have to buzz in and pass through a gate to get on to a boat!! It totally ruined our plan, and I had to buy a one way pass so we could get back to Venice.  A one way (one hour) boat ticket is SEVEN EURO!!! How absurd is that?!  A DAY pass for London transportation is 7 pounds - how is one hour remotely ok?! Since we were trying to be cheap this trip, we tried to avoid this as much as possible, but alas, Lido caught us.

Anyway, we got back to our hotel, and did some work, then ventured out for a nice dinner on our end of town.  I got gnocchi in cheese sauce as my first course and grilled monkfish as my second course.  Both were delicious, as well as the white wine we shared.  After another nice, long, leisurely dinner, we headed back to the hotel and were in for the night.

Sunday morning we wanted to go to Murano, as the tides the previous day prevented us from going to any of the other islands.  We found a church which had an 11 o'clock mass on the island, so we got on a water boat at about 10 to try to head off.  Without tickets. AND GOT CAUGHT.  It was actually the worst moment of my life and I've never felt so scared/awful.  The pit in my stomach was unprecedented.  We presented our old tickets and he told us they were invalid and that we had to pay a 59 euro fine. !!!!!!! Neither of us had that cash on us, as we hadn't been spending hardly anything at all except on food and a few gifts, so we had to wait a few stops and have him ESCORT us to a nearby atm, retrieve the cash, and pay him, getting slips in return that deemed us "transgressors."  The fine provided us an hour's travel, so we eventually got to Murano, went to mass, repented heartily, and settled in for an hour of not understanding anything, but hey, first mass of Advent in Italy? I can't really complain.

The church was lovely and the priest seemed great - very animated and charismatic - I wish I could have understood him.  We headed off into Murano and browsed the island, looking in some shops and seeing the big glass art pieces scattered about, which were really impressive.  We finally had gelato, and then as our final meal got really good eggplant parmesan pizza.

Then, after buying another taxi ticket - no chances this time - we were headed back to Venice, passing the cemetery island on the way!! So of course I snatched a picture, even though I didn't stop for a visit. Soon we were on our way to the airport, and then before we knew it were home safely in London, where public transportation makes sense!

It's funny what a difference a day makes.  Saturday I never wanted to leave Venice; by Sunday, especially after our ticket incident, I was ready to go.  I think it's just the hassle of traveling and knowing you have to go that makes the last day so antsy.  But overall, I loved loved loved (can't say it enough) Venice and would certainly go back.  And this time be sure to always pay for every overly expensive taxi ticket because the fine costs more than the plane ticket.  I have learned my lesson.  My first and only time trying to cheat the system and I failed.  I shall never try it again.  My conscience won't allow it and my wallet can't afford it.  Ah well, here's to you, Venice! Enjoy my donation!