Gelato

I have consumed Gelato three separate times in the past 22 hours. This may be a problem. There is something about it that makes it more attractive to me than regular ice cream. It may be the way it is stacked in the window of the local shops in all of the cities we visit or the fact that the cookie flavor has actual cookies in it. My favorite so far might be the café latte, which is some wonderful combination of coffee and milk that results in an explosion of flavor in the mouth.

In our final night in Florence we hung out on the oldest bridge in Florence, the Ponte Vecchio. The bridge has houses and shops built on top of it; I have not seen a bridge like this before, so I was excited by it. It is the only bridge in Florence that survived World War 2 and as a result, it is one of Florence’s most recognizable landmarks.

This morning we woke up at 7 for our 8:37 train to Venice. Okay, I had some high expectation for Venice. After all, how could a city of gondolas and zero cars not be cool? After about ten minutes of crossing numerous bridges and squeezing through walkways designed for mice, we both realized that Venice may not be everything we had expected. I knew what would make me happy, pizza. So we stopped and grabbed some excellent pizza. After killing the wonderful combination of dough, cheese, and tomatoes, we moved onto St. Marks Square.

St. Mark’s square makes Venice. It encompasses all that is Italy in the space of about two football fields. There are several café’s surrounding the square and they setup little tables for their clients. The restaurants have live classical music being played on stages outside of the restaurants. The music flows through the square and bounces off the squares walls to encompass the area entirely. The music really added to the square’s mystic. On the north end of the square is the main Basilica(who could have guessed? Another church) and a 100-meter bell tower that is home to an 8 Euro panoramic view of Venice. Priceless view of one of the most picturesque cities in the world or three delicious cones of gelato? I think we know the answer to that one.

After the gelato, Jonathan and I decided that we should leave Venice and head to Verona and get back to a city that wasn’t designed for dolphins. We are now on the train to Verona and will be taking a 5:25 train to Bolzano in the morning. We have no idea where we are going to stay or what is in Verona, but I think everything is going to be all right.
-Brendan