Week 7 - Venice, Vicenza

 Boungiorno Friends and Family,

        After this last week, I am a bit exhausted. This was our first week-long school trip and we learned and saw so much. However, there is so much I know I didn’t get to see, and hope that I’ll be able to go back someday. On Wednesday, our class of 53 all got on a train that headed north up to Venice (Venezia in Italian). This was the first time I had gotten to ride a high-speed train and it was certainly much nicer than other trains I’ve been on. Being able to see Venice in person was kinda surreal, a city that uses canals as roads? It doesn’t seem like something that should exist. I can confirm that a place like this does exist and it’s quite breathtaking. 

        One thing I think the media portrays incorrectly about Venice is that the only way to get around is by boat. This isn’t the case at all. In fact a majority of the time we walked most places in Venice. There are bridges everywhere to cross the canals and most of the boats in the canals are making deliveries to shops, carrying supplies to job sites, or carrying around tourists. Winding through the center of Venice is the Grand Canal. This was the only place that I actually traveled by boat on a water bus. It was just like getting on a bus in town except the bus stop was a floating dock. I think it may have taken longer to travel by the water bus compared to walking because it took longer to dock every time we passed a stop.

        One thing I really enjoyed in Venice was the absence of cars. Never once did I have to worry about getting hit by a car because there is really no places for cars to drive. There was a lot to explore in Venice and still things I wish I could go back to see. 

One of our main visits to Venice was the Doge Palace. This palace was the center of government in Venice and was built in 1340. In almost every room of the palace, paintings were decorating the ceilings and the walls. Our guide was great about pointing out the highlights of each room but it was so much information to absorb. 

        My favorite painting is the largest canvas painting in Europe. Its story was to show that the Doge of Venice was blessed by the grace of God. I felt like I could have spent hours playing I Spy with someone finding all the details in this painting. 

        Another highlight in Venice was the Cathedral of Venice which was decorated with some of the most amazing mosaics. The floor was also made up of several different colors of marble. The ceilings had super decorative mosaics of gold depicting different parts of the bible and stories of different saints. 

This mosaic depicted the story of the Garden of Eden.

Another really unique highlight of our trip was going to visit a metal workshop that worked very closely with Carlo Scarpa (A very famous Italian Architect) In his workshop we were able to see parts and pieces from past Scarpa Projects as well as some of the new designs they have come up with using Scarpa as an inspiration.

This was a piece designed for the Oliveti Gallery

After our trip to Venice was complete we headed on to the next stop of our trip Vicenza. The reason we traveled to Vicenza is because there is a high concentration of architecture by Palladio. He was a famous architect in the 1500s and was known for the symmetry of his designs and the use of plaster and brick to make projects more affordable.

We first arrived we had a tour walking around the city where you could see some of his earlier projects as well as how his style influenced other architecture in the city. We ended our tour with a trip to the Olympic Theater. Palladio's goal was to recreate a Roman theater but instead have the entire theater inside. This made it the first indoor permanent theater of the Italian Renaissance.

On our second day in Vicenza, we traveled to La Villa Rotunda another famous work by Palladio. This building was incredible to see because of its amazing symmetry on all four sides of the building. This villa was also the inspiration for Thomas Jefferson's Monticello so it was very interesting to see the similarities of the two buildings.

Palladio's original design was to have the interior completely white with just the statues you see above. However after several years with different owners, the villa was redecorated with frescoes covering almost every bit of wall space.

After this, we continued to a few other places before our trip was complete but I will save those for next week's post. I hope you enjoyed this summary as much as I enjoyed this trip!