Padova & Venice, Italia

What a weekend! Looking for words to describe it without overflowing... fully packed, gelato, plazas, sight seeing, strolling along, nice weather, sunburn, conversations, conversations and conversations, pasta, pizza, funny people, strange people and very nice people, tourists, pictures ;), market, alleys, water, boat, channels...

It was very nicely timed. We arrived in Treviso Friday afternoon being clowdy, but not raining. We drove by bus to Padova where Rike picked us up. After a typical italian lunch, pasta of course, we started to hit all the sights in Padova, had our first gelato (4 different kinds of chocolate icecream and about 20 more sorts!!!!) and after walking for about 4 hours, we stopped for a bite to eat: pizza :). Rike was so kind to leave us her room, so we 4 could sleep there while she moved to her housemate. Of course, it was a short night... at least for some of us ;) after chatting and having some glasses of wine, we all fell exausted to sleep. Anne and Holger got up very early to head to Venice. Rike, Hannah and I rather lived the Italian lifestyle and strolled around these many farmers' markets in Padova. It is very typically and so all the locals were out, too. We looked at the university and the clinical centre where the medicine students have their practical courses. Rike invited some of her Erasmus friends to join us. So our group enlarged to 6 - another German girl, a Portuguese and a Finn. We had a lot of fun. Visited the botanical garden, which is still very traditional with all these medicinal herbs. And well, being in Italy you cannot miss to drop into one of the numerous cafés. Since we were with insiders by now, we went to a local spot and it was just wonderful! There we also got introduced with "Spritz" - the student alcoholic drink in Italy. It consists of Aperol, white wine and mineral water or Aperol and Prosecco, decorated with a slice of orange. When enjoying this in a bar or café you get chips and peanuts with it. So we spent some hours there, sitting outside and letting the sun shine in our face and of course talking talking talking :)

Next day we all got up very early to visit Venice. It was a beautiful day - warm and sunny - so probably all people around Venice decided to spent a nice Sunday INSIDE Venice. So it was very crowded and we quickly decided not to follow the common tourist pathway but to look at the less crowded other islands of Venice. So we went by boat to Murano, famous for its traditional glass work and art, and to Burano, a small island for the workers without these architectural highlights but so lovely and colourful. In the afternoon we went back to the main island and of cousre stopped at the St. Mark's Square, the Bridge of Sighs, and the romantic channels with the Gondolieri shipping couples. Holger and Anne decided to see more churches, so we 3 decided since it was so cowded not to do the tourist stuff and to leave it for another visit. So we walked around these alleys, enjoyed the architecture. I even forgot to keep up my rate of pictures because we fell deep in conversations.
In the evening we drove back to Padova - all having aching feet and starving. Again we went to a local restaurant and had a Maxi-Pizza for 4 people and a couple of Spritzs as well, of course ;). Very tasty.
Unfortunately we had to leave on Monday morning, because our plane was daparting early noon. And because Italy was so sad that we had to leave it was raining again!!!
But we came to one realization this morning: Rike can run as fast as the tram ;) as she gave prove when running to give Hannah her towel she forgot ;)

Thanks Rike, for this wonderful weekend. It was a great time for all of us!!!!