Venice Carnival

Over the weekend I went to Venice to see the (apparently famous) Carnival! I signed up with a travel agency that organized the trip which we thought would be mostly for students, however it turned out to be mostly older couples. Luckily I signed up with my two Irish friends Ruth and Joanne. We got on the bus on Friday night and drove all night to arrive at Venice at about 8 in the morning on Saturday. The Carnival didn’t officially start until Sunday so there weren’t too many people yet. Even though the weather wasn’t very nice (pretty cold and rainy) we spent the day walking around the city. After a ridiculously early (we had been up most of the night so our appetites were all out of whack) and very Italian lunch of pasta, we went up a tower in the San Marco Square to get a great view of the city, and visited the Doge Palace, where the old rulers of the Venetian republic lived and worked. There were even some people “warming up” for the Carnival who were already in costume. We were pretty wiped by the end of the day and headed back to the bus at around 9 which then took us to our 3 star hotel which was situated just outside of Venice. It was so nice to have a hot shower after spending an entire night on the bus and a cold day exploring Venice! (It was also nice to stay in a hotel instead of a hostel for once!) We were up nice and early the next morning to head back into Venice. We spent the morning trying to find the old Jewish Ghetto, where Jews were forced to live – it dates back to 1516! (Side note: apparently the word “ghetto” originated in Venice!) After we explored the ghetto area we had to hustle to the San Marco Square to see the flight of the angel, where someone dressed up as an angel flies from the tower that we had climbed the previous day to get a view of the city down to the San Marco Square (it kinda reminded me of when Tinkerbell flies from the Matterhorn at Disneyland!) This marked the official start of the Carnival. I saw the “angel” for about a second – but there were so many people it was hard to see anything! After the flight of the angel we grabbed lunch (I had a real Italian pizza) and then spent some time taking photos of all the people in costume – they were everywhere! Some of the costumes are REALLY impressed; I was shocked when I later found out no one is actually paid by the city to stand around in costume, they all do it for fun or as a hobby! Some people spend months putting their costumes together. They were all quite patient – I don’t think I could stand around in a Square all day with tourists jumping in and taking photos with me every 2 seconds! We also enjoyed some Italian gelato and some tea in a nice lounge right along the water. We had to be back at the bus at around 7 for another over-night bus trip back to Aix. I ended up getting back to my room at around 5:30 AM Monday morning! Venice was great – I absolutely LOVED all the Canals (if I ever go back with some more money I am going to take a Gondola ride) and the Carnival atmosphere was fun, albeit kind of crazy! In hindsight I wouldn’t do too many more overnight bus trips as it made us really tired. But it was a great weekend. Today (in about an hour actually) I’m heading out to start my 11 day UK/Ireland trip. First stop: Coventry!