Our checkout at the airbnb was at 9 AM, so we got up around 8 AM. I went to take a shower, but the water didn’t warm up at all. I was in no mood to take a cold shower, so I washed up a bit with the sink for now. You had to flip a switch in the bathroom for the hot water, but that didn’t work for me. I have a hypothesis that you have to turn the switch on around thirty minutes before you shower. Since it was our last day, I wouldn’t be able to test this theory.
Nick cooked us eggs and sausage again this morning, Harry stepped up to clean the dishes today. Soon we were all packed up and ready to checkout. Our airbnb host came downstairs to do this for us. We were now all set to take on the day with our super heavy backpacks.
It was a beautiful day outside and we headed to the boat station. We were expecting our three day passes for the public transportation to have run out, but they still worked surprisingly. It must be exactly a 72 hours period. We took the boat from Lido to San Marco on mainland Venice. Our plan was to buy a thirteen euro pass that let you have access to four museums around Piazza San Marco, including the Doge’s Palace.
Our first stop was Museo Correr and we were able to buy the package tickets there. Even better, we could store out bags for a while in a locker. My shoulders were already aching from my backpack.
The museum was essentially an old palace that had a bunch of religious frescos. The place was gigantic and it’s crazy to think someone actually lived there.
Here’s Some Pictures from the Museum
Cool Ballroom
A very fancy and very old glass chandelier from Murano, the island of glass.
Library with a giant, old globe. Naturally I found New Jersey on it.
There was a second part of the museum that had a lot more archeological pieces. It was a pretty large section, so I think it might have actually been considered a separate museum. Either way, it was covered by our ticket.
Here is some of the cool stuff I saw here:
The Griffin is a symbol of Venice and is on their flag
Some cool Roman bust
Seeing mummies never gets old
We wrapped up with museum and sadly picked up our bags from the cloak room. We walked across the piazza to our next destination, the Doge’s palace. If you thought the last place was gigantic and grand, this palace was even better.
Even though we had tickets already, the line to get in was relatively long. We ended up waiting for around forty minutes to get in. I used this time to catch up on some of my brother’s blog posts. We also had a group of American middle-schoolers on a class trip in front of us. It was really funny to observe their awkward 7th-grade interactions with each other. My favorite was when a chaperone had to scold a girl for taking off her shoes and socks.
We were soon in the palace and went to explore. Here is my usual museum image dump:
The inside courtyard
Cool minimalistic stained glass windows
Almost every room had super detailed ceilings with religious paintings
Fancy doorway and fresco
I need a zodiac sign clock for my house
There was a section with a bunch of armor and weapons
We got to tour the jail section in the bottom of the palace. There weren’t any more fancy paintings down here.
Once we left the Palace, Piazza San Marco somehow got hotter and much more crowded. It felt like being Times Square and it was not a good thing. It was hard to navigate through the crowds and for some reason, all the Chinese tourists were feeding the pigeons. At least there wasn’t anyone in an Elmo costume trying to take pictures with me.
We were all hungry and headed to this restaurant known for selling pasta-to-go in Chinese-like takeout boxes. There was a bit of a line, so we knew it would be good. The boxes weren’t huge, so I got a box of pesto gnocchi and a box of fettucini carbonara. We found a spot around the corner to eat them while sitting next to a canal.
My pasta. These aren’t the best pics, but you can take my word they were good.
The pesto was really good, though the carbonara was a bit thick. I still ate all of it and was very content. La Natation’s carbonara is still number one in my heart though.
After eating, we started making our way towards the bus station. The street we had to take was insanely packed for the whole mile and a half walk. Since the canals dominate the city, everyone was essentially forced onto this one street. This made the walk much more crowded and difficult. On the way, we stopped at a small café and bought sandwiches to eat later on the bus.
One long journey later, we had made it to the bus station. It may have been only 65 degrees out, but I was not used to this warm weather. With the added weight of my backpack, I was getting sweaty and thirsty. I was looking forward to sitting on the air-conditioned bus for a bit. We had about forty five minutes to kill, so we hung out near the buses outside.
I took this nice picture of Nick and Harry sitting by the water
It was quickly time to board the bus and we settled in. As I am typing this now, I am currently three hours into my journey. There really isn’t too much to write about a long bus ride, so I will make some predictions. I am going to eat my sandwich, watch a movie, and sleep a bit.
We are supposed to arrive in Grenoble around 1 AM. The trams will be closed by then, so I’ll have a forty minute walk home. I’ve done it before when it was freezing, so I’m not too worried. The NCAA Championship game for Villanova starts around 3:20 AM, my time. I really want to watch despite having class at 9:45. My plan is to sleep from about 2:00-4:00 and wake up to watch the second half of the game.
Stay tuned until my next blog to see if I carry out this plan successfully.
Foreign Tourist with No Grasp of the Local Language 
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