Vivere a Riva: Italy Part 1 -- Venice + Vicenza

Tuesday, February 21, 2012 -- 12:23PM

Here is the beginning of many posts of our 8 day travel through Italy. I'll start with the first two days involving Venice and Vicenza. Venice was extremely cold and windy. It actually snowed for part of the time we were there which is apparently not too common. It was the beginning of carnival so there was a lot of activity and a lot of people dressed in crazy costumes/masks. Our hotel was just over the Calatrava Bridge from the train station, and if I might add, the bridge looks cool but it is kind of an awkward bridge to cross. The stair sizes were very weird and kinda hard to be able to see when there were landings and when there were stairs. We basically just made it our goal to break up into groups and get lost in the city. You can only go so far because it's an island so it was a lot of fun. Whenever we had a destination, we would end up getting lost because you kind of have to make it up as you go since all the canals make it difficult to navigate. It was a lot of fun. We saw Tadao Ando's renovation of Punta della Dogana and a couple churches. We also saw the Olivetti Typewriter Showroom done by Carlo Scarpa. I had the absolute best seafood pasta ever as the first course of our dinner. We stayed in a hotel that used to be a monastery and I got placed in a single room which was a former monk cell. For some reason it creeped me out a lot and I had a really hard time sleeping. Luckily we were only there for one night.

Calatrava Bridge

Tadao Ando's Punta della Dogana -- I had to sneak this picture since photography wasn't allowed in the gallery. His stairs and concrete treatment are absolutely amazing.

Piazza San Marco con Carnivale

My monk cell

Santa Maria della Salute

A couple people in our group got lost in the city the morning we were leaving to go to Vicenza and they made a mad dash from the hotel to the train station and barely caught the train. It was pretty incredible the amount of distance they covered with all of their luggage. They had to pry a door open to jump on the train. It makes for a pretty good story. Luckily, I wasn't one of the ones sprinting to the train. Vicenza is a much less dense city which was a nice change in pace from Venice. It was still extremely cold though. We saw Teatro Olimpico by Palladio which was made in the 1580. It was a beautiful theater. Once again we had an amazing dinner. We stayed in a much newer hotel which was much more comforting than the Venice monastery.