Venice, a truly memorable trip

I thought it could be a blessing in disguise when we failed to visit Venice last December. Indeed I was right. Although Venice was cold and windy at this time of the year, but I consider ourselves lucky to have visited it during the Carnival of Venice! It would still be nice with the gondolas, the beautiful buildings by the Grand Canal, the sea, even without meeting lots of people in fantastic costumes on the streets. However, I can't deny that my main highlight of this trip was the carnival itself. It just made a beautiful city more amazing than it already was.


I thought of not going when Lin invited me even though I really wanted to visit Venice, because the date of departure was too close with my last exam and I couldn't postpone it because I'd be flying to England on 12th. However I took a bit of risk and the reward was more than satisfying.


If you don't know Lin... she's a new friend I met here, but she'd be going back to Taiwan today. She's nice and cute, really, haha... I really appreciate this trip with her, right before we part and God knows whether we're going to, or when, are we going to meet again.


Venice was really special, compared to other European cities I've been (not a lot though, hehe). There were no buses, but only waterbuses (boats) as the main public transport. The 'highway' is the Grand Canal, which flows in the middle of the city. Logically, there're no bus stops, but waterbus stops. We were on the boats most of the time, when we were not walking. The consequence? I still felt like I was on the boat even when I sat down to have meals, or when I lay on bed at night. And I wasn't the only one! Luckily the dizziness didn't cause much discomfort. I basically felt very normal while walking and standing. Besides these, there were a lot of small alleys in the city, between the buildings. Some houses were hidden deep in the alleys. And a lot of bridges of course. Around 400 of them!! It also has 117 small islands and 150 channels according to the internet. Oh yeah, the seafood was fresh according to my friends who tried. (I miss prawns a lot, by the way). We also visited the Doge's Palace which was interesting as we paid a bit more and were showed the secret part of the palace hidden beneath the roof and between 2 floors. It contains the offices of a secret department which were in charge of investigating cases involving the noblemen and prisons in which Casanova was imprisoned.


We went in a much smaller group than the group to Rome and Vienna. Our group consisted of Lin, Phyllis, Amelia (a senior) and me. This was a really special experience for me. I didn't know Amelia before, but had lots of chances to chat with her during this trip. The chit chatting sessions in our hostel room each night were also funny and nice!! Adeline, Agnes and Estella were there. We were actually two different groups but we found out that the flights to Venice and back to Prague were exactly the same a few days before leaving for Venice. We had dinner at the first night, went for the opening of Carnival of Venice 2010 at Piazza San Marco, had a gondola ride, and got stranded in Treviso airport for 9 hours due to flight delay together.


Even though it wasn't perfect, the trip was truly memorable!


MORE PHOTOS