Our first extended weekend travel break was March 3-6 and a friend and I left Thursday afternoon to celebrate Carnival in Venice (or Carnevale di Venezia). This celebration begins about 2 weeks before Ash Wednesday and ends on Fat Tuesday. Carnevale was developed around the Roman Catholic festival of Lent, so people would gamble, play games, dress up, and wear masks (so social classes were able to mix) before the fasting and abstinence of Lent began. The best way I can describe carnevale in Venice is CRAZY. Everywhere you went, there were people wearing masks and dressed in extravagant costumes. The mask/costume stores were endless. My friend, Brittany, and I had gotten tickets to a burlesque ball about a month before we came to Venice and so we got ready on Thursday night to have the time of our lives. The ball was located in Palace Pesaro Papafava, which was close to the 
hotel we stayed at. We both curled our hair, put on our dresses, and headed out to the ball. We got lost a couple times of course but we eventually found the palace. When we walked in, we showed our tickets and were greeted by trio of male singers with an accordion player. They sang to us while we mingled and had cocktails. We met four women who were originally from New York but moved to London 8 years ago for work. It was their first time celebrating carnevale too. After cocktails, we headed ups
tairs to the dining room and found our seats. It just so happened we had a French couple to our left (picture), a Spanish couple across from us, and a Greek couple to our right.....and the common language was English. It was so cool to have conversations with them. We talked to the French man about language and how important it is for Europeans to learn English because the language barriers are so much more vast in Europe. And since I am doing my project in International Marketing on Greece, I talked to the Greek couple about how it was living in Athens now with all of the riots going on because of the discontent with the present economy. It was really interesting to hear their perspective. After our amazing dinner and wine, the burlesque performance began.
A whole array of saucy, sultry dancers put on a performance amongst the dinner tables. It was so fun to watch -- especially the belly dancers who were balancing this huge hat on their head with at least 6 burning candles on it. After the performance, a band from New York played some great music and sang (in multiple languages--you never knew what u were going to hear next) and everyone danced. The French man took both Brittany and I out onto the dance floor. He was the nicest man I have ever met! We had such a wonderful time and finally left a little before 2am and walked back to our hotel.
The next day we got some serious shopping done in Venice and bought some sweet masks as souvenirs (picture). We went to the Rialto bridge and St. Mark's square which was crowded with people in costume. They had an area gated off in the square where you could pay to go in and dance with Venetians in costume. We then found a restaurant and had dinner and then went out for a few drinks at an Irish pub.
The next morning we had breakfast at our hotel and hopped on
the waterbus to get to the train station. We missed our train by 5 minutes -- woops. So we sat in a caffe for an hour until the next train left for Verona. When we arrived in Verona we took a bus to our hotel which was extremely complicated to find -- after we got off at the stop we probably wandered around for an hour trying to find the street it was located on. Not fun. Buy when we got there it was very nice and the people who owned it were very friendly. We got settled in then went out to explore the city. Verona is probably my favorite city in Italy so far because of its size and beauty. It had a very small town feel and was very easy to navigate. The bridges that extended over the river were especially beautiful and provided gorgeous views of the city. We of course saw Juliet's balcony and went through her house which is now a museum and we explored a huge castle with a bridge over the river and went inside of the R
oman amphitheatre. We had our first kebab sandwiches for lunch in Piazza Bra (great name, huh?) and we had pasta for dinner (best tortellini I've ever had). We saw everything we wanted to see in one afternoon and we loved it. We caught a train the next morning back to Paderno Del Grappa and enjoyed the sunshine.
hotel we stayed at. We both curled our hair, put on our dresses, and headed out to the ball. We got lost a couple times of course but we eventually found the palace. When we walked in, we showed our tickets and were greeted by trio of male singers with an accordion player. They sang to us while we mingled and had cocktails. We met four women who were originally from New York but moved to London 8 years ago for work. It was their first time celebrating carnevale too. After cocktails, we headed ups
tairs to the dining room and found our seats. It just so happened we had a French couple to our left (picture), a Spanish couple across from us, and a Greek couple to our right.....and the common language was English. It was so cool to have conversations with them. We talked to the French man about language and how important it is for Europeans to learn English because the language barriers are so much more vast in Europe. And since I am doing my project in International Marketing on Greece, I talked to the Greek couple about how it was living in Athens now with all of the riots going on because of the discontent with the present economy. It was really interesting to hear their perspective. After our amazing dinner and wine, the burlesque performance began.A whole array of saucy, sultry dancers put on a performance amongst the dinner tables. It was so fun to watch -- especially the belly dancers who were balancing this huge hat on their head with at least 6 burning candles on it. After the performance, a band from New York played some great music and sang (in multiple languages--you never knew what u were going to hear next) and everyone danced. The French man took both Brittany and I out onto the dance floor. He was the nicest man I have ever met! We had such a wonderful time and finally left a little before 2am and walked back to our hotel.
The next day we got some serious shopping done in Venice and bought some sweet masks as souvenirs (picture). We went to the Rialto bridge and St. Mark's square which was crowded with people in costume. They had an area gated off in the square where you could pay to go in and dance with Venetians in costume. We then found a restaurant and had dinner and then went out for a few drinks at an Irish pub.
The next morning we had breakfast at our hotel and hopped on
the waterbus to get to the train station. We missed our train by 5 minutes -- woops. So we sat in a caffe for an hour until the next train left for Verona. When we arrived in Verona we took a bus to our hotel which was extremely complicated to find -- after we got off at the stop we probably wandered around for an hour trying to find the street it was located on. Not fun. Buy when we got there it was very nice and the people who owned it were very friendly. We got settled in then went out to explore the city. Verona is probably my favorite city in Italy so far because of its size and beauty. It had a very small town feel and was very easy to navigate. The bridges that extended over the river were especially beautiful and provided gorgeous views of the city. We of course saw Juliet's balcony and went through her house which is now a museum and we explored a huge castle with a bridge over the river and went inside of the R
oman amphitheatre. We had our first kebab sandwiches for lunch in Piazza Bra (great name, huh?) and we had pasta for dinner (best tortellini I've ever had). We saw everything we wanted to see in one afternoon and we loved it. We caught a train the next morning back to Paderno Del Grappa and enjoyed the sunshine.
No comments:
Post a Comment