TravBlog: Venice Carnival for Miss Jenn

I can’t believe it took me 16 months of living in Europe to finally visit Venice. Usually it’s one of the first destinations people go to. I guess I’m not romantic hehe. This time around, we had a perfect excuse to make the trip – Miz Jenn’s bday coupled with the famous Venice Carnival.

We got in bright and early Saturday morning and took the water taxi into Venice. The idea of a water taxi still amuses me to no extent – they actually have ‘lanes’ in the water marked by long posts...how neat is that?! Right away we were hit with the Carnival feel, so I never got to experience the romantic side of Venice. The Carnival is an annual masquerade ball, a tradition from centuries ago where once a year people of all levels of society can mix and mingle together and not worry about being accepted since everyone can hide behind a mask. I would have to say that the tradition has been kept up pretty well throughout the years. The streets were teeming with people: ogling tourists like us, families out for the occasion, and of course, people from all over Italy and the world parading their extravagant costumes around for the crowd. Every store was open and selling masks and costumes, and the streets were filled with stalls selling masks of every colour and for every taste. I was amazed by how elaborate and grand some of the costumes were...we saw a tea set, a chicken coup, mother earth, a zoo, and everything in between. Our own Vi opted for a Marie Antoinette outfit, while Van was...not sure who, but I think it was a jester hehe.

We started our Venice Carnival experience with a proper visit to a seafood tapas place where we feasted and got into the mood with some Prosecco. The rest of the day involved dancing with fellow ‘carnies’ in the town square, more Prosecco and other regional drinks, such as Jenn’s fave – bellini hehehe. We continued the pattern until we made our way to the main square where the costume competition was taking place. We used it as an opportunity to take loads of pictures with all sorts of crazy costumes out there. Miraculously, we also managed to meet with the rest of our Venice crew, only to lose each other in the crowds a little later...we managed to keep Marion, however :D

They party got more fun in the evening. We met up with the late arrivals, Agnes and Dave, and managed to go for a very nice dinner. What made the dinner especially nice is all the alcoholic freebies that they gave out, including glasses of bellini, lemoncello and grappa. We then followed our ears to the main square (that is the largest one in Europe, btw! Who knew!) that was turned into an outdoor club complete with a stage, a dj blasting house beats, and thousands of happy dancing people. We opted for a smaller square party a few blocks away, still complete with a stage and a dj. Who knew that you can meet so many people just drinking in the streets as we met people from all over the world as we were looking for the rest of our group. 2 hours and lots of dance moves later, we managed to find the rest of the group, but lost Dave who disappeared into the crowd...In the best Hangover style, the next morning we learned that he had an epic adventure leaving the island, but then heroically finding his way back to rescue the locked out Agnes hehe. Speaking of epic adventures, special notice goes to Van as well, who managed to find a street afterparty where he rocked out to house until sunset with his new friends. Crazy boys!

Needless to say, we needed a quiet morning, and a quiet day for that matter. We had a lovely brunch and went back to the main square to watch the costume contest finals (and ogle at some more outrageous/elaborate outfits).We finished the day by walking around the waterfront taking as many pictures of weird things and people as we could. It was a lovely lazy finish to a day and a half of action!

I guess I need to go back to experience that special romantic side of Venice. In the meanwhile, here’s a recap of our trip in pictures!

The infamous (and infamously expensive) gondolas