Let all be forewarned, I am not a blogger so if you choose not to continue to read my post, I will not be offended. That said, let me briefly put to words 5 days of travel in Venice, Padova, and a little Vicenza. Po Tin will tell you all about the second half of our trip in the next post.
We started the trip like pretty much any other trip we’ve gone on, at 6 in the morning. The train ride was long and rather uneventful, but arriving in Venice was amazing. We have all gotten used to and come to expect rain on these trips, so we were all stoked to find blue skies and the sun shining once we got out of the train station. After taking a water “bus” and dropping our things off at the hotel, we had lunch then started our tour with San Marco Piazza. We did a few sketched, went into the Basilica, then went over to the neighboring piazzetta to see Palazzo Ducale and Liberia Marciano, the “library” in the Indiana Jones movie (Giuditta broke the news to many in our group that the interior scenes were not actually in that library). We then ended the official educational part of the day at Ponte di Rialto.
Libreria Marciano
Bridge over a canal beside our hotel in Venice
The rest of our time in Venice was all pretty amazing. April 4th we saw Chiesa della Salute, where we were told by a church employee not to sketch. Yes, apparently it is ok to take pictures, but it is rude to sketch… After that we went to Punto Della Dogana, Casa Alle Zatlere, The Palladian Churches on Giudecca, Giardini della Biennale, and Carlo Scarpa’s Negozio Olivetti and Fondazione Querini Stampalia. April 5th we went to Murano, my personal favorite part of Venice, saw glass blowing and shopped for souvenirs. We headed back to the main island just in time to see the Calatrava Bridge on our way to tour reserved tour of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. That night some of us wrapped up Venice with more souvenir shopping and dinner on the water.
Monday, April 6th we left Venice for Padova by train, arriving around 10:30am. We walked to the hotel and split up for lunch and exploration until 5pm for a tour of Cappella degli Scrovegni. We were given a few places of interest to check out so some of us went to Prato della Valle for a picnic lunch then went to see the Teatro Anatomico which was pretty interesting. Some people went to see the Botanical Gardens and a special on Galileo. The next day we took a bus to see the Palladian Villas, the Museo Gipsoteca di Possagno (Scarpa), and the Scarpa Cemetery in San Vito di Altivole. We ended the day by heading to our hotel in Vicenza.
Scarpa Cemetery
I’ve been somewhat long winded so I will try to wrap up my half of the post for the trip. Summary: Venice was amazing! We had sun pretty much the entire time which was “new” to us. Padova was nice because of the freedom to pick what we saw. And lastly, architecture by Palladio and Scarpa are the things to see if you go to North Eastern Italy.
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