Day 24: Venice- Sightseeing, Pizza, and Prosecco

Taylor and I got an early start to the day with breakfast at the hostel, then set out to get lost in Venice (literally. It's unavoidable!). We slowly made our way to Piazza San Marco (Saint Mark's Square), stopping at lots of shops on the way. It's definitely a tourist town, and there are hardly any businesses that don't cater to that population. So even the cafes and coffee shops are also peddling souvenirs- bottles of limoncello, bags of Italian coffee, etc. But we had a really good time just leisurely strolling through the city and along the canals, buying some gifts for friends and family when we found good deals. There's a big controversy in Venice right now, as many souvenir shops are starting to import their products from China because they're so much cheaper than the handmade items from Venice. Many of the shops we went to had signs calling for tourists to boycott Chinese-made products, because the Venetians who actually make these things on their own are going out of business now as they can't compete with the lower prices. So I did my best to buy authentic locally-made souvenirs, even though it cost me a few extra euros in the process! I especially liked the shops around the Rialto bridge area, there were fewer cheap trinkets and more artistic shops. So many beautiful things in such a beautiful place!








I tried a Venetian treat, liquirizia, which is licorice but tastes more like real fruit than anything I've had at home. It was like a fruit rollup with sort of a firm cream filling. Pretty tasty... One more reason to go back to Venice someday!





Finally we got to Piazza San Marco. The cathedral itself is just beautiful, I couldn't believe how detailed the exterior was. Most cathedrals I'd seen so far only had this kind of ornate decor on the inside.





The line to go inside was insanely long, so instead we opted to go to the top of the Campanile, a huge tower in the square that overlooks all of the city. The line was short, so soon we had a gorgeous bird's eye view of Venice.











The square is also surrounded by tons of fancy shops- Hermes, Burberry, and lots of others. So we checked a few of those out just for fun. In Hermes I asked about the waiting list to get a Birkin bag... their classic handbag that is impossible to get. The woman working there told me that it's a minimum one year wait, and the price for a standard size standard leather Birkin is €5,800... Which is just shy of $9,000. HOLY CRAP. I'm content with knock-offs, thankyouverymuch. Although I gotta say they had a beautiful store... It looked like my dream closet!





We had a long walk back to the hostel and were getting pretty tired, so we decided to have a late lunch and head back. Of course, it always takes longer than you think because you have to stop every minute or so to take a photo of something!








We stopped for pizza at AeOche, which we'd heard really good things about. It was seriously delicious. We split a pizza, and I had my first tasty glass of Prosecco... So I felt super Venetian :)





We went back to the hostel and napped for awhile, then had a tasty dinner prepared by the hostel's owner. At dinner we met an Australian guy named Bjorn, and we invited him to go get drinks with us nearby. Of course, we had to pass by the communist party's party again...


But then we found a cute little bar with a really nice outdoor patio, where I sampled Italian beer and some really tasty mojitos. We hung out there for a couple of hours, enjoying our cocktails and each other's company. A great end to a long day!


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