Venice, at last ...

The meaning of my blog title is twofold. First, it is an apology to my steady readers for taking so long to blog about my January trip. Once I came back from the Italian excursion, I had house guests, then headed to the States, from where, as time has proven, I rarely blog. But, now I'm back in Hungary and ready to be a regular blogger once again.

On a literal level, the title of this blog expresses my excessive happiness that I finally made it to Venice, the city that's been my most pined-for European destination for as long as I can remember. Mike and I went at the very end of December and met up with his close college buddy, Ryan, and his friend Brad.

With its labyrinthine streets, countless bridges and serpentine canals that embrace the entire city, Venice was just as charmingly romantic as I envisioned. The majority of our time was spent wandering through the claustrophobic streets, avoiding the myriad crystal and tie shops, and relishing in the luxury of getting lost amid crumbling walls and rising waters. Although we didn't ride a gondola, we saw many gorgeous churches (including the San Marco bascilica, with its overwhelming amount of byzantine, gilded murals) and the Peggy Guggenheim museum, which of course I could not skip! The museum is in a palace right on the Grand Canal, and although its collection included gawk-worthy paintings by Pollock and Picasso, the views from its terrace rivaled any art inside.

Since we went in the winter, we were able to avoid droves of other tourists, but we were subject to flooding on a daily basis. Each morning, we awoke to a siren that signaled the flooding was about to begin. From about 6am to 11am, there was at least a foot of standing water outside our rental apartment that slowly drained back to the sea. Fortunately for my party-loving travel mates, sleeping in and avoiding the water was no challenge at all.

Since we were there to ring in the New Year, we weren't about to miss seeing the main celebrations at San Marco Square, despite the fact that it was underwater on New Year's Eve.

I decided to splurge on rubber boots to keep my feet dry, but the boys decided to go the more frugal route and wrap their feet in well-layered trash bags, leading to the Smurf effect you see pictured. They managed to stay dry for at least a portion of the time we spent in the square, but at the stroke of midnight, we fled the waters and headed to the bar where we had already become "regulars" with the Albanian bartenders. For a more detailed description of our New Year's Eve, visit my new creative writing blog:
http://marisa-musings.blogspot.com/


On the last night of our trip, Mike and I stayed at a gorgeous hotel called Molino Stucky, which is on Giudecca, an lilliputian island across from San Marco. To get to the landmark hotel, we took a chartered boat which Mike adored (his new life goal is to become a boat captain and a gondolier). The stunning,  brick hotel (pictured next to me) is in a refurbished, 19th-century flour mill, which was once run by Stucky, a notoriously tyrannical boss who was murdered by one of his employees in the hotel. Fortunately, I saw no signs of Stucky's ghost, just lovely artwork and beautiful view of the Venetian sky line.

While my dreams of more Italian travel are certainly not extinguished, I am so thankful I finally set foot on the soaked streets of Venice.