Venice is a city stuck in the past. It feels like a perfectly crystallized picture from some bygone time. And within the city, every single one of the museums, churches, palazzos, piazzas and little side streets continue to tell the story of a city that has fascinated the world for centuries.

I had a week off from school, called a “Flexible Learning Week,” but every good study abroad student knows that any time off school or holidays means a trip is in order. My brother was in Europe doing some traveling, so we met up and headed off on an early Sunday morning to arrive in Venice to moderate temperatures and bright blue skies, contrasting against the mirror-like stillness of the water around the lagoon.

I’ve never had another experience like seeing Venice for the first time. As we crested the Ponte della Costituzione, we got our first glimpse of the Grand Canal. It winds through Venice like a curved spine, and it’s filled with polished wooden water taxis, countless gondolas carrying ecstatic tourists and ferries bringing native Venetians to the next stop on their to-do list. Surrounded by massive, intricately decorated palazzos that butt up right against the water, it is a truly surreal experience, like a painting that has come to life. 

Venice is perfect for anyone who loves getting lost and stumbling upon the most magical places. We were only there for six days, yet we visited nine museums.

We went to Saint Mark’s Basilica, the Doge’s Palace and the Museo Correr in the intimidatingly large St. Mark’s Square. Then we visited Ca’ Pesaro, the museum of modern art, with its canal-side cafe that gave us great views of the nearly flooded canal on a rainy day. We explored the preserved palazzo of the Fortuny Museum and the costume and perfume museum of the Palazzo Mocenigo and took the ferry to the neighboring island of Murano to see the Murano Glass Museum. 

We visited all of the previously mentioned museums on the MUVE museum pass, which you can get at nearly 50% off if you bring your student ID. We also visited two other museums not on the pass, the Maleficia exhibition on torture at the Palazzo delle Prigioni Nove a Venezia and the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Venice, but I still got discounts on tickets by showing my student ID. 

The Doge’s Palace was the standout museum that we visited. Oftentimes in Europe, the immaculately luxurious palaces with such rich histories can all seem to blend together as you race from one place to the next, desperate to check off the boxes. Yet the Doge’s Palace, as the seat of government in Venice for the majority of the Republic, was on another level to anything else I’ve seen. 

Every room was more impressive than the next. Walking through the seemingly endless halls of government, I could feel the weight of history contained in every gilt-edged ceiling and intricately wood-paneled hall. The ceilings and walls have mythological, biblical, historical and allegorical paintings done in striking colors by famous painters like Tintoretto, Titian and Veronese. It is exceedingly personified and yet the constant references to judgment, clemency and order communicate that the palace was a place of deadly serious governing. 

We didn’t just explore the museums of Venice. Although the city contains many twists and turns, it’s fairly easy to get from one location to the next because it’s so compact. We crisscrossed the island as we searched for the best spritz and chips, a Venetian tradition. Although most tourists order an Aperol spritz, the Venice special is their own Select spritz, which is dark red and slightly more bitter than Aperol. 

One of the best spots we found was Naranzaria, a small bar and restaurant located mere steps from the famous Rialto Bridge, yet tucked in a corner so that there are not that many tourists crowding the canal-side tables. With a refreshing spritz and a small bowl of chips under the blinding winter sun, you can sit for hours and watch the traffic on the bottle-blue canal race by.

The city is literally dripping with culture. Art, history, music, film — it’s all there on that tiny island. We also had the pleasure of attending a small orchestral concert inside an old church. Refreshingly, no phones were allowed during the performance, so everyone, from locals to tourists, sat listening to the passion of the musicians as they performed several violin and cello concertos by Antonio Vivaldi, a native of Venice, and Johann Sebastian Bach. 

The ceiling of the church soared high above us as the sounds of the instruments did, and the beauty of the 17th-century paintings and statues that filled the room equaled the entrancing performance of such well-composed works. 

The whole world has moved on — but not Venice. The city is a living relic. Especially in the 21st century, when technology pervades every aspect of our existence, Venice has somehow managed to scrape through the centuries relatively unscathed by time and change. The city has been left behind by the rest of the world. Sitting on the canals and having a spritz, it’s as if you’re in the Venice of 50, 100 or 300 years ago. 

Hannah Contreras is a junior writing about her experiences abroad in Europe. Her column, “Notes from Abroad,” runs every other Friday.