This weekend is our last full weekend studying abroad and we’ve got big plans! While in Florence during the pre-study abroad classes, we learned from a lovely woman whose hotel we were staying out (Hotel Elite in Florence, I highly recommend it if for nothing else for the wonderful owner named Nadia) that the Redentore Festival in Venice (which happened to be her hometown) was something that couldn’t be missed. And so, we planned accordingly.
For our last weekend, we left for Florence right after class where we planned on hitting up the infamous flea markets, participating in a bike wine tour and enjoy being back into what has become one of my favorite Italian cities. Friday morning at 9:30 am commenced our bike tour. Jenny “map girl profeshy traveler” and Dannylynn “my legs have turned into a mosquitoes super buffet” and I dressed accordingly for a photo op bike tour: dresses and sneakers. We were ready, or so we thought.
The tour guide walked our small group to pick up our bikes, AND helmets and off we went. Now, I hadn’t been on a bike in quite some time but was very excited about going on this tour of beautiful Tuscany. I wasn’t on that bike more than 7 minutes before I sustained my first injury: the foot pedal scraped my shin. I obtained a few other injuries throughout the day but it was so worth it. Three miles outside of the valley of Florence is the beautiful Tuscan region. We got to see gorgeous sights of the region, including the convent where Galileo’s illegitimate daughters lived, the house where Galilee himself was placed on house arrest by the Catholic Church because he wouldn’t stop sharing his beliefs, the house where Michelangelo hid when he thought he was going to be persecuted for his beliefs and the garden where Michelangelo spent much of his time and got inspiration for his works. I also learned that one olive tree only produces 3 bottles of extra virgin olive oil! It was a great event and I am so glad we did it. It was fun, some hard work and lots of learnings and great sights. Although exhausted from our bike tour, we immediately went to the Florence flea market and walked through all of the streets and bargained our way to some great souvenirs!
On Saturday morning, we cam back to Venice for the festival and saw that preparations for the festivities were fully underway! The man-made bridge that connects the Zattare side of the Grand Canal with the Redentore side of the Grand Canal of the island had been completed, and many pedestrians were marveling at it and snapping pictures, store fronts and homes had been decorated and tables and chairs were set up all over the city for people to have dinner and drinks and enjoy music outside. Restaurants and family homes alike were serving dinner and little kids were running around squirting water guns and snapping pop rocks. The excitement in the air was felt by all of us! I couldn’t believe how many boats were in the water! People were hopping from boat to boat to celebrate and hang out with one another. We grabbed a late dinner and finished just in time to get a great spot for viewing the 40-minute firework display.
Sunday morning, we went to mass at St. Mark’s Basillica and it was absolutely amazing. The church is so gorgeous, and enormous and the mass was something really special. We then enjoyed lunch at our favorite restaurant “3 Chickens” and went to check out the Redentore Church, which is the historic church where the celebration (reason for the festival) of the end of the plague in the 1500s commenced. We also got ourselves a great spot to watch the gondola races, which was a great sporting event to be viewed!
In the evening we planned our final week in Venice L and got ourselves ready for the final week of classes!