Alex, Sara and I spent last weekend in Milan and Venice, with approximately 24 hours in each. It took a 5 hour train ride to get to Milan, so we arrived Friday afternoon. We went to the Duomo and climbed all the steps to the very top. I have been to churches in Perugia, Rome, Florence, and nothing compared to this one. The stained glass was breathtaking, as was the view from the top and the city below. We then went back to the hostel to get ready for dinner and shower and change. I showered first, and flooded the bathroom with 3 inches of water when the handle on the hot shower fell off and I couldn't turn it off. Fearful of the water soaking through the cheap plaster floor and causing a cave in, I run out of the bathroom in only my towel, mascara smeared down my cheeks, and pull on my brown riding boots before I run down two floors to the lobby. Something about my appearance must have said panic or emergency, so the joke of a concierge actually hustled up to our room with a screwdriver and fixed the knob, averting a disaster. After the unexpected swim in our bathroom, Sara, Alex and I went to dinner at a place called La Lanteria, a restaurant recommended by Fodors for a fashionable crowd and home made pasta. Not quite. The tiny room with 9 tables was plastered with pictures of roses, and there was no way that the pasta did not come out of a bag from the Italian A&P because it arrived no less than 30 seconds after we ordered it. We consoled ourselves with wine.
The next day we wake up and go to the huge shopping street in Milan, which actually rivals Rome's shopping street, where I pet the most beautiful shoes in Valentino and try to convince myself that 700 euro really isn't a fortune if I wear them every day for the rest of my life. Thankfully my wallet doesn't buy the lies my feet are trying to tell it, and I do not purchase the shoes. I leave the store, with the salespeople relieved that I stopped rubbing the satin d'orsay Valentino pumps against my cheek and making noises of anguish. At 1 pm we get on a train to Venice for a few hours, and arrive in Venice at around 4 pm. Conceptually, I might have known that Venice did not have streets but canals, and cars but boats, but when I stepped out of the train station prepared to hail a taxi, I was blown away by the water surrounding me. It was so shocking and beautiful that I could not possibly describe it. We walk along the canal to our hostel, check in, drop off the bags, and set out to explore. We walked for 3 hours, all around Venice, popping into shops, peering down canals, and trying to absorb every moment. One of the highlights was walking past these huge markets filled with different kinds of glass, pottery, scarves, shoes, fruits, vegetables, candies. Everything and anything. Walking past this market I became riveted on this one particular fruit that I saw. It was a bright orange, with taunt skin like the skin on an orange pepper, but it was rounded like an apple. I bought the fruit from the little old italian woman, and with the same excitement that Columbus no doubt felt when he discovered the real world, I bit into the fruit to discover it's identity. Hmm. Orange skin like a pepper, edible non-peelable skin, shaped like an apple, tasted like a melon. Whatever it was, it was delicious. At around 9pm, we made our way to the famous Harry's Bar, of Cipriani, to do the total touristy thing of ordering a bellini. And it was so worth the 15 euro it cost. The bellinis were delicious, tangy, sour and sweet all at once, and the people watching was even better. I liked doing something that my father recommended, and that felt like a must-do or an institution in Venice. Plus it was so fancy, and I really needed a does of fancy after hostel-hopping for the past few days. By the way, we calculated that they make over 500 bellinis a day. Whew.
After walking around for a few more hours and hemming and hawing over what glass to buy (Venice is famous for their glass factory, Murano) we went to dinner. Deciding to forgo Fodors this time, as they failed us in Milan, we just go into the first place that looks nice. Now, apparentely I have a different view of food than my roommates. To them, it is something to appease their hunger. Big Macs, spaghetti with meatballs, whatever, it is all the same. To me, if you're going to do something, do it right. And we so we only had 1!!! meal in Venice (yes, we would have breakfast the next morning but that is usually fruit and yogurt, nothing special) and so I had so expectations. Anyway, these expectations were not met when we went into the restaurant, where they told us the wait for a table in the white table clothed, soft jazz, candle lit section of the restaurant would be 30 minutes, but we could sit at a table in the bar area. The roomise we starving and did not want to wait, so we sat at the bar. Feld family, if you are reading this, I want to let you know: I did you proud. I asked to change tables. I might have embarrassed my roommates, but we only had one dinner in Venice, and I just could not take the techno music they were blaring or the number of people waiting in line for drinks at the bar who constantly bumped my chair. Table #2 was much better, and in the actual restaurant, so we managed to enjoy the evening.
The next morning, we woke up early and took a ferry to Murano, a little island near Venice that is the location of the glass blowing factory. We saw a demonstration by a very bored man who in 1, 2, 3 managed to manipulate an unremarkable blob of glass into a galloping horse. Very cool. We then walked around the island some more, going into practically every shop, and purchased huge amounts of glass that would no doubt break on our journey home. All in all, probably the best trip so far.
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