Visiting Venice was my first day trip during the Forum-Nexus summer 2014 program. The train ride was 2 hours from Milan, but it was beautiful. The greenery was bright and vivid, and the farmland had an extra light to it compared to what I see in the States. You could tell the farmers were organized and on top of their work. In between the different valleys and farms, there were little towns to admire. Some were small with little houses, and some were big with multiple houses stacked up the hills.
When we finally arrived to the train station in Venice, we followed Hugo’s advice and walked to the right of the canal to get to the square. Everything about Venice was amazing. On our way to the square, we saw here little market kiosks lining the street. Some kiosks just had touristy things, while others had clothing and jewelry. We really enjoyed ourselves with all of the shopping! My favorite part of the city was that literally at every turn there was a canal. Some were big and some were small, but every canal had a bridge leading to a new section of town. People in Venice don’t use cars because of the smaller streets. The canals are their streets and boats are their cars. I think it’s very cool that their form of transportation to work or stores is either by foot or a boat.
After walking for about 45 minutes, we made it to the square. It was huge and had buildings with amazing architecture. The outskirts of the square were filled with restaurants and shops. We walked and shopped a little more and then found a place to eat. I had delicious pasta with oil and garlic, which was the perfect meal for lunch! Afterwards, we continued walking around the market areas before heading back to the station. We decided to take the opposite route back to the station, so that we could see as much of the city as possible – and that’s just what happened. By the time we got back to the station, we had walked a full circle around the city and some in between. Before getting on our train we grabbed some gelato and stopped to rested our feet. Visiting Venice was an amazing shopping and sightseeing-filled day. I’m really happy that I decided to take a day trip during the program, and I think that the beauty and charm of Venice is definitely something everyone should see in his or her lifetime!
By: Callan Chapman, Forum-Nexus 2014 Alumna
