Italy and Malta Trip (Day 1): Venice

My boyfriend and I flew off to Italy last December and it was so much fun! After coming back, I continued to rest at home until I cleared all my leave and had to go back to work again. It was then that I realised how hard it was to get back in the groove (do people actually say this or am I just weird) after a much needed break.

Anyway, I finally have a little bit of time to blog about the trip and I'm going to do it chronologically this time. This is how the first day looked like from the skies of Switzerland:

Since we took Swiss Air, we had to transit at Switzerland. Snapped this photo when we took off from Switzerland, and we were on our way to Italy!

When we were flying from Singapore to Zurich, I was nervous because it's been such a long time since I had taken such a long flight. I mean, the flight was 13 hours long I think. I have been so accustomed to shorter flights and the last time I've been to Europe was in 2009. I was also afraid that I would freeze in Italy. My father gave me heat packs, which kinda came in useful later on, and I brought the thick winter jacket that I had worn in Korea in 2012. Needless to say, this was extremely useful. Thankfully, I didn't listen to my mother's advice. She told me to bring only my leather jacket, which did not do a good job of keeping me warm at all!

So anyway, back to what happened. After arriving at Venice, we searched for Hotel Olimpia. My boyfriend was in charge of booking all the hotels but obviously I looked at the hotels as well and we chose them together. We boarded the bus from the airport, alighted at the bus interchange and dragged out luggage to the hotel. I was already getting all the Venice vibes (again, do people say such things?) because I could see all the gondolas and canals. I could not believe I was finally in Venice, the place that I've been wanting to visit since secondary school. If there was a chapter in your Social Studies textbook about Venice, you would know exactly what I'm talking about!

Although my boyfriend was the one who booked the hotel, I was the one who spotted the hotel from afar because I recognised how it looked like from the pictures on the hotel booking website he used. We checked in and while waiting for our room, the staff served us some beverages. My boyfriend was pretty surprised that they would serve us drinks but I thought it was a pretty normal thing (Eh hello! This is an atas hotel what!) and I've experienced it before in other countries too. (And I thought he was the one who was more well-travelled?)

I think I loved the hotel in Venice the most because this is how it looked like:

I have a thing for Victorian era furniture. Everything just seems more grand!

Then it was time to get vaporetto tickets and explore! Vaporettos are the water taxis/buses there, since there aren't any public buses or actual taxis you can take. Everyone takes the vaporetto in Venice! I think we bought a 2-day pass so that we can tap all we like and travel around with ease. It's a good idea too; if you ever get lost, you could just take the vaporetto back to the stop that is nearest to your hotel. 

But in the first place, that situation was unlikely to happen because John got a SIM card for the purposes of GPS and also in case we needed to do more research on the Internet. He was complaining about how cold it was so we also bought some beanies. Gloves, beanies, and Pinocchio figurines were being sold everywhere. 

This is the view from the Rialto Bridge. Everything in Venice was picture perfect! 

After lunch at a crappy-place-that-shall-not-be-named, we boarded a vaporetto and headed off once more!

And of course, I was so fascinated with the vaporetto. It was cold but we stood outside to admire the view.

Soon, we arrived at St Mark's Square. I was captivated by the old buildings around me and there were many people feeding the birds. (cue the song from Mary Poppins) At first, there weren't that many people around but later, more and more people started trying to sell us flowers, and some others were trying to persuade us to feed the birds out of our hands and let the birds stand on our arms or whatever, but we weren't interested. If your mother had always warned you about how dirty pigeons are, you would probably think twice too. However, I think what concerned me more was the size of the seagulls. They were probably four or five times the size of normal seagulls in Sydney! They were just weirdly humongous!

We strolled around St Mark's Square and peered into the windows of shops and cafes. Then, our first stop was St Mark's Basilica, which is basically the cathedral you see in the above picture. I don't think my boyfriend planned on bringing me there, but I was so fascinated by the architecture that I wanted to go in to have a look. Besides, we found out that admission was free. Photography was not allowed in the cathedral and it was too dark anyway, but of course, the intricate designs and paintings on the walls and ceilings of cathedrals never cease to amaze me.

Next, we bought tickets to St. Mark's Campanile, or bell tower. The cold was intense and we tried our best to bear with it so that we could admire the magnificent view from up above.

In the distance, we could see San Giorgio Maggiore, one of the islands nearby. We were supposed to visit this church but we didn't have the time to do so in the end.

Why does everything look so pretty!

Our last stop for the day was Doge's Palace. This impressive building is enormous and I don't think we managed to look at all the exhibits. There were simply too many!

I'm not familiar with Venetian history at all, but I'll just mention some interesting things that I remembered. We visited the prison area and peeped through the tiny gaps in the windows just like how prisoners used to do when they were moved from the courtroom to their dark and lonely cells. The prisoners would be able to see the structure known as the Bridge of Sighs, and it was named as such because the prisoners would supposedly sigh after getting their last look at freedom. 

There were also many institutional chambers and the walls were covered with paintings of important-looking people. In the 'Scrigno' or coffer room, I read about the Golden and Silver books, which kept a record of aristocrats or families of ancient Venetian origin. These books were kept in a chest and there were also cabinets for all the documents that could prove one's legitimacy or whatever. While reading, I was reminded of the book that Hermione referred to in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, entitled 'Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy'. Ugh.

Our visit had to be cut short (we only spent an hour there) because the museum was closing, and when we came out we were surprised to see how dark it was already!

After dinner, we took the vaporetto back to the hotel. It was drizzling, so it was cold and we couldn't stand outside. I was so tired from all that travelling that I ended up dozing off on my boyfriend's shoulder. Every time the vaporetto stopped, I would wake up and ask him how many stops we had left. He found this oddly amusing. (He is weird too)

And that's it for day 1!