Okay, it’s official: I love free travel weekends. If the rest of the semester is anything like this weekend in Northern Italy, I’m probably never coming home. Milan and Venice were everything I had hoped they’d be, and more. Northern Italy is beautiful. The landscape is diverse (with the Alps next to plains next to a lagoon), and the cities are vastly different from one another. This was my first trip with friends instead of family, and my first trip without a packed agenda, so we were able to wander around Milan and Venice without any major commitments, which might be my new favorite way to travel.
We booked an early train to Milan, so after walking through the streets of Rome at 5:00 am, we slept pretty much the whole way. We awoke to the sight of very modern skyscrapers standing between us and the Alps in the distance. We got off the train to find ourselves on the outskirts of a very cold Milan. We took a taxi to our hotel, from which I could tell how very different Milan is than Rome. Buildings were relatively modern, with varying façade materials (a nice break from brick and stucco), and lots of glass. After checking in, we made our way to the “historic center” of the city (really not that old) to visit the main attractions of our day.
First stop: the Duomo di Milano. This “gothic” cathedral (sarcastic quotation marks because it was built in the 20th century, not during the gothic era) is the highlight of Milan’s main square. Outside the church, Ashley, or as I now like to call her “Bird Whisperer,” fed some pigeons and we found ourselves surrounded them (they’re everywhere!). We went into the church to find a beautiful set of columns accented by the colors of the stained glass windows, making the whole church glow. As someone who uses color in almost every project, Caity was smiling ear to ear.
We spend some more time walking around the interior before descending into the archaeological excavations below. Though the current cathedral was built in the 1950s, the foundations of the previous churches remain below the floor level. Palimpsest is one of my favorite things about Italy, and seeing these ruins, along with those that I saw under St. Peter’s, solidified my interest in historic preservation even more. There was even a little nub of a column, so of course I hugged it.
Next we climbed roughly 250 stairs to the roof of the cathedral. One of the major reasons I wanted to visit Milan was for this sight alone. This is one of the only “gothic” cathedrals with a rooftop walk accessible to tourists. We were able to walk among the flying buttresses and see every detail of construction, stuff that’s pretty hard to catch from the ground looking up. I tried my hardest not to get emotional, but this was a dream come true for me. Everything was beautiful and perfect and I’m having a lot of trouble putting it into words past that. I easily could have spent a whole day up there, but there was more to see.
I really hate to admit this, but we had Burger King for lunch. It’s been SO LONG since I’ve had American food and we were starving! Anyway, we continued onward to the Vittorio Emanuele Galleria, which is a famous outdoor shopping complex covered in vaulted glass, as was common in the 19th century. Designers like Prada, Louis Vuitton and Versace take up most of the real estate… needless to say we didn’t actually do any shopping (but hey, a girl can dream). We wandered along the main square and found some more reasonably priced shops, where we spent hours trying on clothes. Milan is one of the fashion capitals of the world, so I didn’t feel too guilty. We were just trying “soak up the culture.”
The rest of our day was much looser now that we had checked the two biggest monuments off our list. We found a castle just west of the city center, which led us to a large park and a triumphal arch. Musicians were playing smooth jazz, giving us calm background music for our soothing walk. We soon stumbled upon a small art and architecture museum, where we spent some time before returning to the park. We realized how early it was, and how much time we still had left. When in doubt, go church hopping. We found some pretty churches that were much older than the Duomo, and they were much closer to the Christian aesthetic in Rome. Later, we returned to the city center for more shopping and dinner. Dinner was awkward, to say the least. This was our first experience with a café that didn’t have a menu translated into English. Considering none of us are enrolled in Italian, and the fact that we had already ordered wine, we were kind of stuck. Our waiter noticed our struggle, and was nice enough to translate almost the entire menu for us. We clearly stuck out like the tourists that we were, and hurried out as soon as we were done. We ended our day with gelato, per usual, and headed back to the hotel for the night.
The next morning was another early one. We boarded our train to Venice, excited to see yet another new side to Italy. As soon as we got off the train, we came face to face with the Grand Canal. Every single view in Venice is beautiful.
We dropped our bags off at our hotel and immediately went back out into the city; we were too excited to wait another minute. Our goal was Piazza San Marco… but this was a lot more difficult than we thought it would be. Of course Venice is on the water and there are over 400 bridges, but almost none of them line up, making navigation a confusing process. We decided to use this to our advantage and leisurely strolled through the narrow streets, finding nooks and crannies unbeknownst to most tourists. One of the cool things about Venice is that it is definitely the city for small people. Some streets are so narrow that we had to walk single file, and some doors were too short even for me at 5’ 3”. The city streets were quiet without traffic to fill the canals with noise. We got some gelato to add to our beautiful walk along shops and over bridges. After about an hour, we finally stumbled across Piazza San Marco (we didn’t even know we were close). Michelangelo’s façade was the perfect context to the basilica and the bell tower on the East. We made our way to the part of the Piazza facing the lagoon, where we found all of the tourists we hadn’t seen all morning. I was wearing my shirt that had Venice on it, so I matched the fabric of the city (annoying and touristy? yes). Everything was breathtaking. The water. The gondolas. The Venetian gothic facades. I couldn’t get enough.
We decided to go into the basilica where pictures weren’t allowed, but as you can probably guess I took a few. We made our way up to the roof terrace, which provided more beautiful views of the Piazza and the lagoon.
Next we met up with Robby, Lexi and Evan at the Querini Stampalia Foundation, which is a museum featuring architect Carlo Scarpa. I’m not much of a modernist, but I was excited to see his work. Scarpa’s attention to detail and material is unmatched by any other modern architect.
After browsing the museum, it was time for the main event: riding a gondola. Yes, it’s overpriced, but if you didn’t ride a gondola did you even go to Venice…? We found a gondola park and boarded our boat with Marco, who has been rowing since age 5. We made our way through the silent heart of Venice, seeing places like Mozart’s vacation home and the Bridge of Sighs. The water was calm and the ride was smooth. We steered into the lagoon where the water was choppier from the larger, faster boats and I (embarrassingly) felt a little sea sick. Luckily the weather was beautiful and the scenery was enough to distract me from my headache.
We went back to the hotel for a quick nap before going out to dinner. We found a place that gave us all free wine, and the food was also excellent. Since Venice is on the water, the seafood selection is amazing. Looking around the table, I couldn’t help but feel so incredibly lucky. I was surrounded by great friends, eating delicious food in one of the most beautiful cities in Italy. We wandered around the city and found some live music and cannoli’s for dessert (one is never enough). We returned to our hotel after a long day and fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows.
We decided to sleep in the next morning to recover from our long, early weekend of travel. We found a small bakery for breakfast with the most amazing pastries. If you’re ever in Venice, make sure to check out Dal Mas Pasticceria. They had special pastries called Venezianes that are only made for Carnival (coming up during the spring). Honestly, they tasted just like churros, which made this Texas girl very happy. Next we joined Robby, Lexi and Evan to visit the Rialto Bridge, which is definitely one of the more famous tourist attractions. We were disappointed to find it covered in scaffolding, preventing us from getting views in or out. We decided to wander the east side of Venice with the rest of our day. We found stunning views of the lagoon from the shore of the island, and stumbled upon a few pretty churches. We did some souvenir shopping before returning to the train station, round 2 of pastries in hand. Also a pigeon managed to get stuck in our train car for an hour on the way home and it was the most frightening experience of my life.
Coming home to Rome is one of the best feelings in the world. Even after seeing some of the coolest cities in Northern Italy, I get to come home to places like St. Peter’s and the Pantheon. The only weird thing about free travel weekend trips is not coming home to my family. I’ve been in college for 4 years and I’m still not used to coming home to my mom after an exciting trip. Luckily, I’ve got fantastic friends that make this semester amazing, even if my family can’t be here. Until next time, ciao!
Number of Columns Hugged: 3.5 (if you count the little stump below the Duomo)
Days Since Mexican Food: 28
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Read more from Haley at https://haleywalton.wordpress.com/
To find out more about the U of A Rome Center semester program for Architecture, visit http://studyabroad.uark.edu/romecentersemester/
