VENICE, ITALY & LAKE GARDA

VENICE-

On Saturday we had a planned day trip to Venice with Claudio. I was so excited to go because I had never been and was planning on going with my Mom when she comes to Italy at the end of April. This way I can show her around having gotten familiar with the city.

After an early train, we arrived in Venice around 9am. We made our way throughout the city by following Claudio on his way to the famous piazza, San Marco. Getting there seemed very confusing. Venice is filled with narrow streets and tall buildings so you can really only see what’s right in front of you, or directly behind. It was like a maze but this made it fun too! We stopped at a bridge that was surrounded by a lot of cute souvenier shops and looked over the canal to take in sites of Venice.

We then stopped at a glass factory. We all piled into a very hot room where they have the overn used to make glass. One of the guys made a beautiful glass horse using only a clamp and a needle-like tool. It was crazy how quickly he created such a piece of work... in only 5 minutes! It was very hot, so he could only use tools and he wouldn’t dare touch it. After we got a low down of how these glass figures are made, we were shown the shop where we could see all the glasswork and also buy anything available. I got some great hand made jewelry that I am excited for.

Once we left the glass factory we headed to San Marco. It was a gorgeous piazza! Although the weather was a bit rainy, it was nice to look around at Saint Mark’s Bascillica and the Duke’s palace. The piazza was huge, with lots of shops and restaurants. One side of the square leads to the Grand Canal.

We meet back up with Claudio at the Lace School. Here we listened to one of the owners about how lace is made by hand. It is an unbelievably long process and takes months to finish just a tablecloth. The school is in a building that used to be church, so it had a lot of character to it.  

We learned how long it takes to hand-made tablecloth. The one that she showed us takes 8 months and sell for 1000 euro! But they also have simpler ones for much cheaper. We also got a free doily.

The lady was so funny! She was showing us all types of lace tablecloths, table runners and even wedding garters! She then was giving us girls some advice on men, as she is on her second husband. She said 'first husbands are for love and second is for money'. Then Claudio jumped in and said an old Italian phrase that goes “There’s no such thing as ugly women, just poor men”. They were fun making jokes and giving some elderly wisdom. I got a few cool things from there and can't wait to gift them to my family back home!

Finally, it was time for our big lunch! We ate a Barbaner. I got pesto, fried fish and French fries accompanied with red wine, of course. The pesto was delicious. I literally wiped the plate clean! The fried fish dish wasn’t too bad either. It was fried calamari, shrimp and a mystery fish that I was not a fan of. A lot of people got ink spaghetti! It is apparently a popular dish in Italy. I got a photo of Kristi eating it, the pasta was pure black!

We finished the meal with caffe and a shot of limoncello, and cheered to Claudio!

We had some free time until we had to take the train back, so Bree, Jack, Kelly, Greg and I decided to go on a gondola ride!! Our driver was named Little John. He was awesome and so much fun! We made Jack and Kelly kiss everytime we went under a bridge (so a lot) and little John would blow kisses to Bree and I too. I swore we were going to crash like five times, but Little John was definitely a pro and made it through the smallest spots. We relaxed a bit and observed the calm canals as Little John sang and whistled a ton of Italian songs. Our favorite was when he sang “Volare.” We had stocked up on bottles of wine for later that night, but sadly couldn’t get them opened for the gondola ride since we didn’t have an opener, but regardless it was such a great experience!

We finished out the day with some shopping! They had the coolest shops and we checked out a bunch of them. On our way back to the train station, we took the water bus. It was so fun to be on a public transportation on the water and a nice change from all the walking we did that day. It was so nice how sunny it got that day even though it started out wet and rainy, but I guess that’s Italy for you!

That night we continued our TV binge of watching Lost and Jack and Greg’s apartment. We played a drinking game with our wine from Venice and once we each finished our own bottle of wine, I made pasta for the five of us! We were somehow hungry even after our huge lunch, but pasta with Ragu sauce and freshly shredded parmesan is nothing you could pass up on a Saturday night! We all were pretty pooped after three episodes and called it a night, since we had to be up bright and early for our day trip to Lake Garda on Sunday!

LAKE GARDA - 

Sunday was another day trip with our program, we all hopped on the coach bus and made our way to Lake Garda! We first stopped at the museo dell’olio or an olive oil museum. Right when we walked in they had a sampling over 10 different olive oils, and also tons of brushettas, olives and garlic to try. They sold it all there, and everyone went crazy on the food and well as the shopping. I picked up some great things to bring back to the states and share with family and maybe compare with US olive oil.

Next we bused to Malcesine which was a town on Lake Garda. I had only been to Pesciera di Garda but there are tons of little towns surrounding the lake. This one was beautiful! Claudio had planned to take us on the cable car that goes up to the top of Monte Baldo. It was a fun ride up to the mountain, we even had to switch to another cable car to take us all the way up to the tippy top. 

View of the town of Malcesine

Malcesine Castle

Olive trees!

The ground level was 75 degrees, but up on top there was still snow on the ground and it was pretty chilly! I made the horrible mistake of wearing sandles… I know, it was a big set back, but I wasn’t the only one. Raquel and I powered through the snow basically barefoot. We trekked up the mountain a little more to look onto the lake. It was very slushy and Raquel slipped, which was sad to see, but once we got to a restaurant almost to the edge of the mountain we stopped in to dry off, warm up and grab a bite to eat. I had a cappachino and Lisa and I split tortollini con prosciutto in cream sausce. It was nice to warm up under the blanket and we still had a great time with the view on top of the mountain!

We then headed back to the bottom to walk around the city. It was so nice to be in the warm sun and 75 degree weather. We walked through the town a bit and ended up at a little beach on the lake. Everyone was laying out and soaking in the sun. I skipped some rocks and then listened to some tunes on the dock while taking in the gorgeous view. It was paradise.

Olive smasher

We headed back to the bus where Claudio was going to take us to another town near by called Garda. Once we got there we had a few hours to explore this city. Bree, Kelly, Jack, Greg and I did some shopping on our way to the lake front. I stopped in a lavender shop since it's my Moms favorite! It smelled incredible in the shop and I picked up some things to give my Mom.

We finally made it to the lake front and it was just as pretty as Malcesine! It felt like summer time. We saw a group of people playing ancient Italain games and we watched them for a bit. It was quite an odd game but it was cool to watch. I had brought a Frisbee so we started throwing it around in the park near the water. It was so much fun hanging out. We started playing monkey in the middle with the five of us and that when we got a little crazy with "the bee" and it ended up in the lake L We all ran over and tried to link together so Greg could reach in and grab it but that didn’t work. I almost jumped in to grab it but the water was not as shallow as I thought. A man came over and we thought he was going to help us, but we finally figured out that he was warning us of the snakes in a bush behind us! We didn’t realize that we had jumped over a fenced off area to get the Frisbee and it was because of all the snakes! It was such a frantic moment because we just wanted to save the Frisbee but it was long gone.

We just sat by the water for another hour passing by the time with some stories and casual chatter. It was a bit sad without our Frisbee but we had a blast while it lasted. 

Around 7 we headed to the restaurant for dinner. It was a fish restaurant which wasn’t my favorite but I was up to try some fresh seafood! We started out with jumbo shimps, eyes and all. I was instantly queasy. Claudio had to peal off the shell and head for me but I wasn’t too bad to eat! Meanwhile, at our table, we decided to try start a drinking game to take full advantage of the bottomless wine. Claudio had run into two of his old students and they joined up for dinner so we had them get in on our game as well. It got really rowdy and before we knew it we had cleared our five bottles of wine before our second plate came out! Claudio was enjoying our little game but refused to join in, and probably for the better. The next dish was mussels and clams and I tried a mussel again, still not a huge fan but it wasn’t too fishy which was good. After the next dish of fried fish came out Claudio caught on that I wasn’t a fish eater, so he asked to cook for a plate of meat for me, which was nice since I was just feeding myself on wine and bread! There was steak, sausage and prosciutto that the chef grilled for me, which was so nice of him. I gobbled up the sausage and nibbled on the prosciutto but I was already really full from the wine. To finish off the meal, Claudio got us all limoncello shots to take! Then Greg ordered a round of grappa shots – which was probably the worst alcohol choice – but at this point we were too buzzed to care and finished off the meal with our grappa shots and cheered to our lost Frisbee.

The bus ride home was more of a pre-sleep for the group. We all passed out very quickly. We arrived back in Verona around 10pm and the five of us wanted to continue our binge watching of the show Lost. We went back to Jack and Greg’s apartment to start watching it but to me it’s all a blur. I woke up at 2am and we all realized that we had just passed out before we even watched a single episode! It was so funny because no one really knew what happened. There were five of us cramped on two tiny twin beds and somehow we all fit. Bree and I headed back to my apartment since it was only 10 minutes away and she crashed on our couch instead of sharing a twin bed between three of us.

All in all it was a great day! I loved being by the water and enjoying the warm weather with friends. Trips with Claudio are always the best!