CARNIVALE DI VENEZIA

Venice's famous Carnivale festival!
The carnival in Venice was first recorded in 1268. The subversive nature of the festival is reflected in the many laws created over the centuries in Italy attempting to restrict celebrations and often banning the wearing of masks.

MY FAVORITE MASK: THE "OWL"

Masks have always been a central feature of the Venetian carnival; Mask makers (mascareri) even enjoyed a special position in society, with their own laws and their own guild!

UNHAPPY TRAVELERS AT 5AM

The whole festival was amazing. The entire city shut down (although I was sad becasue all the art museums I had been planning on visiting were closed) but the experience was amazing! We arrived in Venice at 530am after taking a 2am sleeper train! After a pretty miserable morning experience- getting lost on the way to Hotel Kappa in Mestre to drop off our bags with two girls who were spending the night there, realizing that we had four fours to spend before anything in Venice was open, and fighting the cold morning breezes- Kalea and I finally decided to jump on a bus and head into Venice to explore.

VENITIAN MASK STANDS

RENAISSANCE ACTRESS

We arrived in town around 930am. It was nice to get there early because there were very few people walking around the city so early and later in the afternoon the city was packed with tourists and renaissance actors.

BATMAN!

We sampled food and ran in and out of several costume stores (Kalea bought a batman mask and I bought vampire fangs!). The city was gorgeous. The gondolas and water streets made it feel like we were walking around in a dream world. St. Mark's square was where the most people were celebrating, listening to music, taking pictures with Renaissance actors, and basking in the Venetian sun.

“If you read a lot, nothing is as great as you've imagined.
Venice is -- Venice is better.”
-Fran Lebowitz

VENETIAN GONDOLAS

The classical Venetian boat is the gondola, although it is now mostly used for tourists, or for weddings, funerals, or other ceremonies. Many gondolas are lushly appointed with crushed velvet seats and Persian rugs. The Gondoliers, by law, must be of Venetian birth.

FEEDING THE PIDGEONS

ST. MARK'S SQUARE
“This was Venice, the flattering and suspect beauty - this city, half fairy tale and half tourist trap, in whose insalubrious air the arts once rankly and voluptuously blossomed, where composers have been inspired to lulling tones of somniferous eroticism.”

ST. MARK'S SQUARE

Piazza San Marco is the principal square of Venice, Italy. Napoleon remarked that the Piazza San Marco is "The drawing room of Europe". It is one of the few great urban spaces in a Europe where human voices prevail over the sounds of motorized traffic, which is confined to Venice's waterways.

CIAO VENEZIA!

Around 500pm we were so tired from being on our feet for 12 hours straight and only having slept about 30minutes the night before, we boarded a train back home to Florence.