Venice: Pizza, pizza, and more pizza

Tuesday, August 30th, 2011 Our train to Venice was an all-day affair, starting at 9:50 AM. Before leaving Nice, we ate breakfast at our super nice hostel and headed to the train station. We paid some sort of reservation fee (to be honest, I am losing track of all the random fees and am just going with the flow). My philosophy is why stress about things you can’t change or have no control over, ya know? We ended up getting on an earlier train to Genova, which was our planned stop to Cinque Terre along the way to Venice. Cinque Terre is an apparent must-see, a collection of colorful towns that sit on cliffs off of the Mediterranean. But when we got to Genova, we found out that Cinque Terre was a 2-hour ride from Genova, and we just didn’t have the time to do that if we wanted to catch our train to Venice and be there on time. So, we had to sadly scratch Cinque Terre from our itinerary. Several hours and a couple of wrong train stops later…we arrived in Venice. The train station was right on the Grand Canal, and it turns out so was our hostel!! Literally less than a quarter mile from each other. Venice is everything you expect it to be and for me, more. I expected a stench that it seems many friends have prepared me for, but I think Western Europe has been on top of its cleaning and an environmental initiative. Every city we have been in has been noticeably cleaner than any American city I’ve been to. Because it was around 6 PM when we arrived in Venice, we were able to check in and everything before exploring the city. Our room was like a 5-star hotel compared to the last couple of rooms. Though the hostel in Nice was so nice, it was still an 8-person bunkbed room, which is great for the price, but this room in Venice was 7 –spaced-out twin beds, with room in between all of them and two windows overlooking the Grand Canal. One bathroom for everyone, but no complaints from us!! There was one other guy in the room when we got there, and he was totally friendly and cool. We talked to him for a bit and asked if he wanted to come out with us for dinner (pizza). He obliged, and we all ended up hitting it off really well. He was from California and had been studying in Brighton for the summer and was headed to Rome and then back home. Venice doesn’t have much of a night life and can really be seen in a day. Considering we had 2 nights and a day, this was a perfect opportunity for us to catch our breath and relax. Dinner was at a place that came pretty highly recommended, though I was hesitant because it looked like a chain resturant, which is not my idea of a good eat in Italy. I know I’m totally snobby about food, but I’d rather eat in a hole-in-the-wall. The pizza was good, but huge. Our roommate Chris told us they were personal sized pizzas…but they definitely weren’t. The best part of the meal was the company of our new friend and our waitress, who was an absolute doll. She was in University in Venice and at the end of our meal, she told us it was a pleasure to meet us and gave us free limoncellos (popular Italian drink…super strong). We took a picture with her – of course ☺. We sat by the canal for a while talking about random things and turned in around 11:30 or so.