Venice is one of those cities that everyone should visit sometime in their life. You can see pictures of Venice and watch movies shot in Venice, but neither of those can prepare you for the moment when you walk out of the train station in Venice and you have your first look at the city. 

The issue with Venice is that Venice is a day city. For those of you that have spent the night in Venice, you know what I am talking about. Relatively early in the evening, stores start to shut down, people leave the city and silence ensues. During the day you can barely walk through the city without running into people. At night you can walk for 30 minutes without seeing anyone. There are only 3-4 bars that are open during the night and I use the term “bar” loosely. It’s more like a place you can buy a drink, not anything crazy or loud. Knowing this, Mara, Andy and I decided to take the train to Venice for the day only. 

On Friday, July 14th we took an early train from Verona to arrive in Venice by 9 AM. As luck would have it, on the day that we headed to Venice is was raining. Now I’m not talking about a slight rain, I’m talking a torrential downpour. The kind of rain that you can’t see six inches in front of you it’s so strong. To our credit, we had at least looked at the weather forecast before heading to Venice so Andy and I had a rain jacket and Mara had an umbrella. But in that kind of storm, rain jackets and umbrellas don’t keep you protected.

Our first plan was to wait the rain out. We grabbed some coffee and pasteries at the train station. We took our slow time eating and drinking…anddd a whole 20 minutes passed. Spoiler alert: It was still raining. 

Then we went to Plan B – let’s find a museum where we can spend some time inside. We searched “museum” on google maps and the closest museum was the Leonardo Da Vinci Musuem. Even though it was the closest musuem, it was still ten minutes away which is sufficient time to get soaking wet when you’re walking outside in a tsunami (Yes, for those alert readers…the weather has progressed from “rain” to “torrential downpour” to “tsunami.” And no, this is not an exaggeration – I do not have Andy “Hype Man” Rasdorf genes.). Regardless, we decided that ten minutes of walking in the rain would be worthwhile in order to enjoy an activity instead of chilling at the train station. 

How to Walk for Ten Minutes in a Tsunami: 

Minute 0: Spend a good five minutes trying to work up the nerve to actually step into the tsunami. I relate this to the feeling of trying to convince yourself to pull off a band-aid when you know it’s just going to hurt. 

Minute 1: Walk head-down to avoid stepping in puddles. Stepping in a puddle would be game over.

Minute 3: The rainjacket is stuck to your skin it is so wet. Any article of clothing that is not covered by the jacket is officially a different color thanks to the water. 

Minute 4: Take a brief stop to try and shake off as much water as you can. 

Minute 6: Take another brief stop because you’re completely lost. Walking through Venice is like walking through a corn maze except that corn mazes were purposely created for people to get lost. I can’t find any reasearch to back this up, but I swear whoever made the street layout in Venice also just wanted everyone to get lost.

Minute 8: Socks? What are those? Your socks are now wet sponges that squish underneath you every step you take. 

Minute 9: Shit…didn’t see that puddle. 

Minute 10: WHY ARE WE NOT THERE YET?!?! Stop once again and try to read the map on your iPhone. Seriously, how did people ever exist without iPhones?

Minute 14: THE MUSEUM DOES EXIST! WE MADE IT! 

Minute 15: We walk inside the museum looking like sea monsters. The people working the musuem stare at us in shock, trying to figure out what to do with these soaking wet creatures that just walked through their door. We smile and ask how much the musuem costs. 🙂

Even though we had a bit of an adventure getting to the musuem, the Leonardo Da Vinci musuem was SO COOL. Before the museum I knew some about Da Vinci. It’s pretty hard to come to Italy an not learn anything about Da Vinci. That being said, I had no idea how incredibly intelligent, ground-breaking and inquisitive he was. 

Some fun facts about Da Vinci’s awesomeness:

Fun Fact #1: Like a normal person, I have always assumed Da Vinci was Leonardo’s last name passed down from his father (like typical last names are). In reality, Da Vinci comes from the fact that Leonardo was born in a small down call Vinci…get it? He’s “from Vinci” (da = from). 

Fun Fact #2: Leonardo had CRAZY handwriting. Not sloppy or messy, legitimately crazy. Leonardo not only wrote from right to left, but he started writing on the last sheet of a notebook and would finish on the first. WHO DOES THAT?!? No, I’m being serious…what would possess someone to write in that style? It’s just so much unnecessary work…

Originally, experts thought that Da Vinci wrote in this manner to protect his work from being plagiarized. However, according to the museum, it is now thought that he wrote this way out of habit (a habit he developed during childhood). This brings me back to my original question…seriously who does this?! And how did he survive in school? There are just so many questions…

Fun Fact #3: Leonardo was actually more curious than a cat. (Hehe…you really thought I would write a blog post without mentioning cats? 🙂 )  Leonardo wanted to know everything and I swear he got pretty close. Not only that, but he would design and create instruments to help him further his studies.

Case #1: The Perspectograph

To use this machine, you would straddle the bench, look through the eye hole in the wood and be able to draw directly on the glass which could then be traced onto paper. It’s tracing paper before there was such thing as tracing paper. 

Case #2: The Mirrors Room


Leonardo created an eight-mirrored room in order to be able to examine the “secret of multiple reflection.” Honestly, I’m not sure exactly what that means, but that’s what the musuem says. Personally, I think this would be the most amazing closet to have to check yourself out before leaving your house each day. You can see every angle of yourself!!!! I swear I didn’t know how long my hair was until I stepped into this room. Leonardo was wise beyond his years. 

Fun Fact #4: Leonardo created the first ever Machine Gun….and it looks like a yard rake. 

I’m not even sure where to start with this one. First, who knew that Leonardo created the first ever Machine Gun? He’s famous for painting Mona Lisa! Not for anything related to war. On top of that, how does a machine gun go from looking like a rake to the massive killing weapon it is today? (Although in all honestly, I don’t really do guns so I’m not 100% what a machine gun looks like today. But I feel pretty confident that it doesn’t look like a rake.) 

Regardless, what was super great is that we learned all about Leonardo and his war inventions through virtual reality. I’ve never done any virtual reality stuff before and I was in total awe. I was so enthralled I forgot we were at a museum! I wish I could tell you about all the super neat facts we learned, but I was so intent on watching everything that I didn’t take notes. Guess you’ll have to go to the museum for yourself 🙂

One of the best things about the musuem was how interactive it was. Besides the virtual reality, we were able to play with basically all of the replica inventions that Leonardo created. This was perfect for Andy because he can’t sit still for more than 90 seconds.

At one point you could even use wooden pieces to re-create Leonardo’s version of a bridge. Andy loved this (while simultaneously analyzing it for his structural soundness…typical).

What we were trying to create:

What we ended up with:

As you can see we were pretty close! Kudos goes to Andy…all I did was hold certain pieces in place haha

After visiting this museum, I have SO much more respect for Da Vinci. It was so inspiring to see his life’s work. I grew up with technology, with so much at my fingertips. But Da Vinci was 100 steps above me…he didn’t grow up with technology, he legitimately made it. Snaps to you Leo, snaps to you. 

When it was time to leave the museum, we were happy to discover that the rain had finally stopped! Time to begin our beautiful and sunny day in Venice.

Venice is gorgeous. There really is no other way to describe it. Every where you turn (and trust me there are a lot of darn turns in Venice) is another beautiful picture. You could spend an entire day walking through the streets of Venice, crossing the canals and just soaking up the scenery. It was during a walk such as this that Andy encountered a shock: (drumroll please!) The Water Fountain!! 

• Me: Oh hey, do you see that fountain over there? Let’s go fill up our water bottles.
• Andy: What fountain?
• Me: The one right there – its green and there is water coming out of it.
• Andy: You mean the dog fountain?

Yessssire – Andy was unable to believe that the city of Venice had water fountains and was CONVINCED that they were for the sole use of dogs. He actually made both me and Mara take sips of the water before he would take a sip to deem is “acceptable.” Of course, once he decided that water was good…he became the dog fountain’s #1 visitor. 

Obviously, it’s impossible to not take an enormous amount of pictures while in Venice. The good thing is that everyone is a tourist in Venice, so you’re never alone and you blend right in!

That afternoon, we all paid 20 euros to take a boat ride to three of the nearby islands – Murano, Torcello and Burano. 

Even though we were with about 100 other tourists, the boat ride was pretty awesome. Just being on the water with the wind in your hair and beautiful scenery around you is quite relaxing and very enjoyable.

The first island we stopped at was Murano and it was fantastic. Murano is known for being the island where all the famous Venice glass-blowing is done. As part of the tour, we were able to visit one of the glass blowing factories, Vetreria Artistica Emmedue. 

Way way long ago (aka when I was in middle school) I also saw a glass blowing demonstration when I was in Venice. I actually don’t remember a single part of it…reason #574 that you should wait until your older to pay for your kids to travel places. This time around, however, I was in total awe. 

The oven that is used for glass blowing is 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. As I’m sure you’re aware, that’s deathly hot. Not to state the obvious or anything, but wanted to make sure you didn’t skim over that number or miss a zero somewhere in there. 

During the presentation, the glass blower demonstrated two techniques. The first one was the more traditional method and is commonly used to create plates and vases. From my excellent observational skills the technique went something like this:

Step 1: Stick glass in oven. Wait for it to get incredibly hot and be burning red.

Step 2: Pull glass out of oven. Sit on a seat and use these tong-looking things to mold the glass. Blow into glass a little bit.

Step 3: Repeat steps 1-2 a couple of times

Step 4: Spin the glass around in a bunch of circles.

As all this is going on, I can’t help but think about who, back in the day, came up with this whole glass blowing technique. Is there no easier way to make plates and vases? And why would you want a glass plate anyways? That just seems like you’re asking for someone to cut their hand once the plate inevitably breaks. And they didn’t even have band-aids back then so that makes it ten times worse! 

Anyways, at the end of the insane process, a plate is created! When the plate is finished it is around 1,000 degrees. In these type of demonstrations, the plate is always going to break due to thermal shock (i.e. Going from so hot to so cold in such a short time frame).  Under normal circumstances, the plate would be placed in a cooking oven for 24 hours where the temperature of the plate would decrease slowly. 

Alas, instead we end up with a broken plate!

Andddd if that isn’t cool enough, the next technique is ten times crazier! This technique is a lot harder and usually takes someone 5-7 years to master. (Side note: I have no idea how long this man had been a glass-blower, but it must be a while since he has tennis elbow from all his glass blowing. Another side note: This is something I never would have noticed without Andy pointing it out to me haha.) Basically, instead of the series of steps I listed above, the glass-blower sticks the glass into the oven, takes it out and has one minute to complete the structure.

ONE MINUTE!!

SIXTY SECONDS!!!!

You know how long it takes me change my clothes in the morning? Let me tell you…it’s longer than 60 seconds. So while I am struggling to get my shirt over my head and zip up my pants, Glass-Blower Master over here is making an intricate horse, out of flaming hot glass. Nothing like a middle-aged man to make you feel incompetent. 

Okay, now that the pity party is over…HE MADE A HORSE OUT OF GLASS IN UNDER SIXTY SECONDS!!! Literally, I watched this with my own two eyes. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t believe it. Luckily for you, I took a picture.


Honestly, the pictures cannot replace this experience. If you go to Venice, I highly recommend watching a glass-blowing demonstration.

What I do not recommend is going to the second island on our trip – Torcello. There are a lot of beautiful places in Italy, but Torcello just doesn’t really make the cut. It’s not that its ugly per say, it’s more that there is literally NOTHING on the island. I’m still convinced that someone must be paying these tour guides to take the tours to Torcello because there really is no other reason to stop there.

Things we saw in Torcello:

• A mini-bridge:

• A colorful boat

• A very old church (rumored to go back to the 3rd or 4th century…this is also probably not a rumor, but our tour guide’s English was a little questionable so don’t quote me on that)

• Anddd the highlight of Andy’s stop: A SUNKEN BOAT!!! (No, I don’t know why this was so exciting. Apparently, it was important enough to drag Mara and I over to it and take a picture up close…for the blog of course)

So there you have it! No need to visit Torcello because you have now seen everything there is to see. (I’m only slightly kidding over here)

The final island we stopped at was Burano. My only complaint with Burano is that we didn’t really have that much time to explore. This seemed like a really cute city and I would have like to walk around some more. Don’t fear though…we still got some great pictures! My favorite part was how colorful the whole city was. 

While in Burano, Andy found a new structural conundrum…the leaning tower of Burano. While not as leaning as Pisa this bell tower was still crazy crooked! Andy could not wrap his mind around it. Literally, we spent half the time in Burano walking around this tower to determine how it could be so crooked. Andy was not impressed with my response that it was just old and that’s what happens to old buildings. Haha

After Burano, we took the boat back to Venice and then high-tailed it back to the train station. Venice was fantastic, but I’m definitely more of a slow and leisurely traveler. I like to have my days of chilling at the beach or reading a book or petting a cat (don’t judge…my cats are super fluffy). However, there is just NO way to do Venice slow and leisurely in only one day. Let me rephrase that, there is no way to do Venice AND have actually experienced the city in a slow and leisurely way. 

By the end of the day, we had walked over 10 miles. TEN MILES!!!!! We basically deserve a medal for that. Even with all the walking and the rain, there is no other way to have done Venice. As Papa Fiorio so graciously told me growing up, “No pain no gain.” Thanks Dad – the advice has served me well.

P.S. On the way back from Venice (as if our day wasn’t long enough!), the three of us stopped in Vicenza for a pre-wedding happy hour! Vicenza was beautiful…especially at sunset (seriously…could you have something more picteresque?!)

When we got to the main square where we were meeting the group, it turns out that there was a silent disco going on! There were three DJs playing – red, green and blue. Everyone who was participating had headphones and they could listen to any of the DJs. Whichever DJ they were listening to would change the color on their headphones. As you can see…blue seemed to be the fan favorite 🙂

Even though we were only there for a couple of hours (we had to catch the last train home), it was so great to catch up with the fam before the big day. Shout out to Carlo for looking classy as always – love you cuz!