Venezia

Four friends and I set out late morning on Friday and arrived early afternoon in Venice for Halloween weekend. I enjoy high speed trains- it is a really convenient way to travel. Venice was beautiful and sunny all weekend. I kept telling people afterwards that it really is as beautiful as people say.

Our airbnb was close to the train station. The wifi didn’t work the first day but it ended up working out because all the guides we read and advice we’d gotten was to just let yourself get lost anyway.

So Friday night, we got lost. We ended up making it to San Marco square and the Duke’s palace. The square was especially beautiful at night. We had a sub par meal at a touristy restaurant then found a cool bar near the Rialto bridge that played acoustic AC/DC and Otis Redding. The singer looked like Jack Black.

Saturday morning we had some difficulty finding a café with wifi but we eventually got on our way with a destination in mind- the Libreria Acqua Alta bookstore. Along the way we stopped in two different waterfront palazzos that housed the Personal Structures exhibition for the European Cultural Centre (you can take a virtual tour here).

We made it to the bookstore, which had a lot of old books and vintage postcards and prints. The bookstore was near San Marco and we were able to go inside the church. It was darker inside than I anticipated but the candlelight reflecting off the gold and mosaics was beautiful.

We went back to the airbnb for a quick nap. We had some trouble finding a place for dinner that wasn’t expensive or a tourist trap (or both). We ended up going to a restaurant called Doflin, which is the name for the metal tip on the end of gondolas. Everyone had a pretty good plate of homemade pasta. Next we donned our Venetian masks in the spirit of Halloween and headed to Campo Santa Margherita. We met up with some friends from JFRC who were also in Venice. The next morning we headed back to Rome on the train.