Weekend in Venice

March 2-4, 2019

Venezia! ~ Gelato, Pizza, Pasta, Gondoliers, and a Guggenheim ~

First Trip of Spring Break:

Since I have my core course travel week the last week of March, this week started my spring break. Luckily it lined up with Vandy's spring break, so I got to travel with some friends who flew all the way to Europe! We started off the week in Italy and ended the week in Hungary. Venice was a nice, wholesome start to break that was relaxing and fun. The Carnival of Venice was also still going on this weekend, so it was fun to see tons of people dressed up is masks and random costumes. Being in Venice during Carnival was cool, because a lot of people were starting to celebrating Mardi Gras that same weekend. But Venice is definitely one of the biggest tourist cities in the world, so be ready for lots and lots of crowds. I would suggest booking an airbnb or even a hostel very early.

Travel Tip: Most places are cash only in Italy & Hungary uses the Forint instead of the Euro (learned that the hard way)

Canal Tour:

A big highlight of our 2 days in Venice was the gondola tour. I'm a big fan of canal tours and will probably do one in any city that has one, so I was very excited to try a gondola instead of a typical canal tour. Gondolas are a little pricier than a canal tour, but if you split between people it is worth it! I liked that it was more personalized and relaxing than a canal tour would have been. We winded through the smaller canals, stopped by the Grand Canal in the middle, and got tons of great views.

Other Sights We Visited:

Rialto Bridge

Ponte dell'Accademia

Scala Contarini del Bovolo

Peggy Guggenheim

*Gondolier not pictured

Peggy Guggenheim Collection:

I was looking forward to my semester abroad mainly for the chance to visit the Guggenheim museums. I really loved the Peggy Guggenheim Collection during my visit. The collection is housed in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni where Peggy Guggenheim lived. She donated the Grand Canal palazzo and her entire collection of art to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in the 1970s.

The entire place didn't look like a typical museum building. The Nasher Sculpture Garden in the center made it appear like a place that used to be a home. I enjoyed seeing a blend of Italian and American art, because there were many familiar American artists curated side by side with Italian artists in the Schulhof Collection exhibition on postwar artistic expression.

2019 also happens to be the 70 year anniversary of Peggy Guggenheim's acquisition of the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, her first organized exhibition there, and 40 years after she passed away. So the museum had a special reinstallation of the permanent collection to commemorate these events. Seeing works, like a Calder Mobile, from photos of Peggy Guggenheim's own home in this exhibition was pretty exciting. Parts of the exhibition felt like walking through her own home and seeing the art through the eyes of a collector. Many of the Guggenheim's pre-World War II works are displayed, and her interest in Cubism, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism are also shown.

Just happy to be here

Food!

Another major part of Venice was the food. I was looking forward to Italian pasta, cheese, pizza, gelato, and wine allllll week, and it was not a disappointment. The best part about Italy is that you can pretty much pick a random restaurant off the side of the street and find some great food. So honestly I don't even know the names of half the places we ate at, but I took plenty of pictures for reference! Black squid ink pasta is also a big thing in Italy?