Venice

Sunday morning we headed to Venice. Now I have seen a lot of things in the two months I've been here, but I have never seen any city in my life as unique as Venice. First of all, in order to get to Venice you have to take a boat. Venice is built on an archipelago of 117 islands formed by 177 canals in a shallow lagoon. The islands are all connected by 409 adorable little bridges:

Because of this, all transportation is by foot or boat. The classic Venetian boat is the gondola, which we took full advantage of:

Some of the Reparata girls on the gondola! It was very romantic.

One of the most interesting things about Venice is that it is actually sinking. Recent research shows that it may not be sinking anymore, but that has not be officially confirmed. The city is still sometimes threatened by frequent low-level floods, however. In fact, when we were visiting it rained the whole day. I purchased an umbrella, which was destroyed within the first five minutes of our tour due to the wind. However, regardless of the weather, Venice was incredible and may even be my favorite place we've visited:

One of the churches in Venice.

A view from one of the bridges.

Piazza San Marco

Mozart's house!

The view from Piazza San Marco.

Another unique thing about Venice is the plethora of masks that exist:

The reason that there are so many masks is because there is a huge carnival in Venice every year from two weeks before Ash Wednesday through Mardi Gras. The carnival initially started started as a time of celebration through all social classes, as the masks hid any form of identity between social classes. Now the carnival is mainly held to bring back the culture and history of Venice.

Isn't this a good look for me?

As we were heading back to the boat, we found all these pigeons in Piazza San Marco. One of my friends had a granola bar, so we used it to feed the pigeons and one of them jumped on my hand!

Overall, Venice was absolutely beautiful and I want to go back as soon as possible.

Ciao,

Sarah