venice

venice was such a beautiful city. the canals and lack of cars make it unlike any other place i've ever been to. between the charming old buildings and the gondolas and the water, everything was so picturesque. we were literally stopping to take photos every time we turned a corner because everything was so pretty! one downside to venice was that it was really touristy and that definitely had a negative impact on our experience. we loved the city, but we had several experiences where we were ripped off, treated rudely by restaurant employees, and yelled at by salespeople and that was not fun. i guess that the people and businesses of venice are so used to tourists that they treat everyone kind of poorly, which was sad. i still loved visiting though!

my favorite part of our time in venice, and one of my favorite experiences on study abroad, was seeing a manet exhibition at the doge's palace. the exhibition was called manet: return to venice, and the thesis of the show was about how the time manet spent in venice as a young artist influenced his later works. i love manet and i really loved the exhibition. the highlight was definitely seeing manet's olympia on display side-by-side with titian's venus of urbino. if you're not an art history nerd like me, you might not know why this was such a big deal, but those two paintings have never been displayed together before and it was unreal. both are major, major works of the art historical canon and seeing them together was so cool! my friends and i just stood in front of them comparing and contrasting and noticing new things and coming up with new interpretations for almost half an hour. it was amazing.

another highlight from venice was definitely riding in a gondola. it's kind of a touristy and overpriced thing to do but it was so worth it. our gondolier was named roberto and he had a puppy, which was awesome. there's no better way to see venice than from a gondola, and venice is a beautiful city to see.