Date: July 23, 2024
Location: Venice
Blogger: Caitlin Dorn ’26 (MSC FLI Chair)
Hometown: Houston, Texas
Ciao again!
On our first full day in Venice, we started with a light breakfast at the hotel before heading out. We then took one of the Vaporettos (water buses that act as the Venetian form of public transportation) to the main island of Venice. There, we met up with our tour guide for a walking tour of the city. She took us around to many of the main attractions and briefly gave us their histories. We were able to see the outsides of the Doge’s Palace, St. Mark’s Basilica, and Marco Polo’s house. We also saw the location where some of Spiderman: Far From Home was filmed which I found very cool. At the conclusion of our tour, she led us to the Rialto area where we were able to cross the famous Rialto Bridge and see the Grand Canal.
After the tour, we were released for lunch. At the recommendation of the tour guide, I tried mozzarella in carrozza con prosciutto which was like a big piece of friend bread with mozzarella cheese and ham in the middle. It reminded me of a mozzarella stick. While I enjoyed getting to try something other than pasta and pizza, this wasn’t my favorite meal of the trip. The Italians don’t do fried food as well as Americans. After lunch, I shopped around the main island a little more before getting some afternoon gelato. Today, I opted for a combination of caramel and a flavor called dark ciok which was just pure dark chocolate cream with no milk. As a dark chocolate fan, this was probably one of my favorite gelato runs.
Having seen all we wanted to of the main island for the day, we headed back to the Lido via Vaporetto again. I did just a bit more shopping before heading to the beach. The water was cool, and it wasn’t too sunny or crowded: a perfect way to wind down the day. After our swim, we headed back to Ai Do Mati for dinner. Today, we were served a delicious roasted chicken with potatoes and rice and an interesting meringue cake for dessert. Following dinner, we enjoyed a little more free time. I chose to hang out with Barrett and Pat while some others met up with Nic for a book club session on Machiavelli’s The Prince. Finally, when curfew rolled around, we all headed to bed and prepared for an amazing last day in Italy!