Our first stop on the last leg of our week + long trip was Venezia (Venice), a city literally built on water. It amazed me that if you wanted/needed to go to work you just hopped on a boat and made your way there. We were able to take a boat several times while we were there, including a gondola – though just for two minutes, but at least I can say I rode in one 🙂 While the weather wasn’t the greatest while we were there, it was cloudy everyday with the occasional sprinkle, I really enjoyed the city. It had the most interesting streets which required you to walk up and down stairs in order to pass over the canals, and there were absolutely no cars or bikes, which was beneficial to our group – we tend to always be in the way of cars or bikes, and often times both!
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| The Bridge of Sigh |
The first full day in Venezia was spent primarily in St Marks Square, with a visit to the basilica and then the Ducal Palace.
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| St. Mark’s |
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| Mosaic outside St. Marks’ |
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| The Ducal Palace |
We had a delicious traditional Venetian lunch with Giudi, complete with Spritz – a beverage that supposedly comes from Venezia.
We also visited the main bridge over The Grand Canal, Punto Rinalto. I liked it so much I made Nick go back the next night. While a bit touristy, I loved looking in the little shops along the way.
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| Gondolas |
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| The Grand Canal |
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| The Grand Canal |
Day two was dedicated to visiting a couple Palladio churchs, a museum redesigned by Tadao Ando and The Peggy Guggenheim Collection, where we had a guided tour provided by Elizabeth who just graduated from NC State and was interning there for three months. The collection was absolutely amazing and she had several pieces from some of my favorite artists. The garden space was just as lovely. Our last night we ended up at dinner right around the corner from our hotel, a traditional Venetian hotel right along a quiet canal, where Nick and I had a terrace overlooking it!
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| Palladio |
After an early morning departure we were off to Padova, where we were able to enjoy the Renzo Piano exhibit titled Pezzo per Pezzo (Piece by Piece). It was an amazing collection of some of his major projects throughout the years, and it was wonderful! It was such an awesome opportunity to have!
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| Pezzo per Pezzo |
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| Renzo Piano Exhibit in Padova |
Then off to Vicenza where we visited another Palladio project, Nick tells me the most well know of them all, La Rotunda. I appreciated the outside of this project more than the inside, it was a little too ornate for me.
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| La Rotunda |
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| Vicenza countryside |
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| Just beautiful! |
I have no idea what the name of the yellow flowers are, but they were in full bloom and absolutly gorgeous. The next morning we were off to Verona to visit Castelvecchio, an old city castle which was transformed into a museum designed my Carlo Scarpa.
I can’t get over how awesome these little cities are, makes me bummed that we missed it last semester, but so thankful that we were able to experience it period, and the weather was great!
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| Verona |
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| Castelvecchio clock tower |
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| Verona |
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| Nick & Lisa enjoy their carrots at Castelvecchio – don’t ask! |
After making our way back to Vicenza, we ended our trip with a short tour around the city with Wilma to see some more Palladian architecture, including the Teatro Olympico. It was the first indoor theatre within Europe, which is still used today. It used to seat 800 people, but today the limit is 350. It has all the original wood seats, which at the time of the war where removed and taken to Venezia, and then replaced eventually to its original state.
We’re not quite sure why but Wilma dropped us off an hour earlier then planned at our hotel, so we made our way to centro and enjoyed one more beverage in Vincenza before traveling back to Genova.
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| Teatro Olympico |
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| Vicenza |
While we had an awesome trip, we are both exhausted and ready to be back “home”. This week will be spent catching up on work / schoolwork, preparing for our next villa guest, my mom, and hopefully another much needed surgery for Nick. Fingers crossed!
