There is no comparison between gelato in America and Gelato in Italy. Italian gelato is just so much better. Well now that I got that out of the way, I can talk about how amazing Italy is, and an experience I'll never forget. After driving by boat, we arrived at a glass blowing demonstration. I was actually expecting it to be much longer. That's only because the demonstrator was absolutely amazing. He whipped up a glass vase in about five minutes, and even more impressive, a ten inch horse standing on two little legs like it was kicking up in about 120 seconds. How you take a liquid from a 2000 degree Fahrenheit oven, and make it into a beautifully detailed horse in 2 minutes blew my mind (haha glass blowing pun anyone?). After that, we arrived on the island of Venice and went into a nice walking tour. From there, we went on the gondolas into the canals. Our driver for the gondola actually sung to us which I heard was rare so that was a nice surprise. The most of us had a nice Italian pizza for lunch and continued to the Doges palace, where renaissance art is at its prime. Of course, Italy is a great place for some good high fashion shopping, and some friends and I went to Prada. Did you know that they actually say hi to tourists? Way different then Chicago!
Long story short, it was a very exciting day, and I had gelato a total of 3 times in one day. I hope I can come back and get some more!
- Alex A.
After a hectic, food deprived morning, our group travelled by taxi boat to the beautiful island of Venice. We first stopped at a glass blowing shop where they showed us how to make Venetian glass and also how to swindle tourists into buying expensive souvenirs (yup mom you are now the lucky owner of a beautiful Venetian vase, you're welcome). Taking off on the boat again we docked on Venice where the tourists are as numerous as the pigeons (and there are infinite swarms of birds). Dodging through crowds we worked our way from the water front to instead navigate the maze of allys where you may think you remember a certain store, but it's really just a trick-- you're lost. Although our tour guide seemed to recognize the difference between each ally, I found myself picking a direction and randomly embarking on a maze/adventure in order to find my way back to the main St.Marx square. The square itself was beautiful and was super tourist friendly with all the police who let you eat and sit, but do both at once and it's basically a felony.
Later we took a romantic gondola ride which definitely relaxed and cooled us off even though our gondolarie refused to sing to us like in the movies. The food tasted amazing, which may have been a result of starvation or exhaustion, but it doesn't matter because it was unanimously agreed upon that it was the best pizza and gelato we've ever tasted in our entire lives. The only thing better than the food was the sights and we didn't have nearly enough time to enjoy it all. I'm sure many of us will be wanting to come back (plan on that one mom). Our day in Venice came to a close with a tour of the Doge Palace (pronounce like Dojo which explains my confusion as to why there was no kong fu fighting). The elaborately decorated palace had a gorgeous interior decorated with many paintings and a prison that was almost to welcoming on account of it being a welcome relief from the heat. I certainly enjoyed Venice and it lived up to all my expectations, I'm so glad I got the chance to experience so much of Venice; especially before it sinks (at the rate of 1 mm per year...) I may never get to see that much of it again!
- Rachel
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