Since Kevin was spending eight days in France and had never
been overseas before, we really wanted to check out another country for a few
days. So about a month ago, we booked plane tickets and a hotel in Venice,
Italy! We decided to spend Tuesday to Thursday in Venice, which turned out to
be a good decision because of less expensive costs and fewer crowds.
We knew getting around Italy would be a bit of a challenge
since neither of us speak Italian and we wouldn’t be getting in until 8:30PM.
We had to figure out how to get ourselves from the airport to our hotel and the
first booth we went up to said it would 110 euro! We talked to another man who
said that there was a bus for six euro that could drop us off about a 15 minute
walk to our hotel and all we’d have to do was “crossa da bridgea an dena walka
straighta!”
So we took the bus but after we got off, we crossed the
wrong “bridgea” since the map of Venice we had was a public transportation map
that showed only the main roads, and not having iPhone maps is a new thing for the
both of us. I jokingly said to Kev that we needed a compass to direct us, and
he actually started using the compass app on his phone. I would have never
guessed in a million years I’d ever use that app, but here we are, traveling
through Venice having no idea where we were going using a compass.
Thank goodness for Kevin because without him I would have
never been able to get around Venice. Plus, the Venice streets at night are
kind of creepy, especially since our hotel was further away from all the
touristy sites. We dropped our things off in our beautiful hotel and headed
somewhere to find dinner which turned out harder than we anticipated. We were
warned that the kitchens close between 9-9:30, and it was about 9:25 by the
time we started hunting for a restaurant. We finally settled on a place not too
far from our hotel and had our first Italian pasta!
We wandered Venice for a little bit longer and got some
waters for the next few days (you don’t realize what a luxury free tap water is
until you’re in Europe). We bought four HUGE bottles that turned out to be
seltzer water and only finished one by the time we left Venice. We finally
headed back to the hotel and crashed early since we knew we’d be getting up at
a decent hour to explore the city!
The next morning we were lucky enough to enjoy a free
breakfast at our hotel (there was even BACON. I haven’t had bacon in so long).
We stuffed ourselves knowing that all we’d eat for lunch was some gelato (fine
by me) and went to go find our way to Saint Mark’s square! Again, we had no
idea where we were going and we wanted to walk there to really get to see a lot
of Venice. We ended up walking too far and going about fifteen minutes out of
the way, but finally ended up at the square which was absolutely gorgeous.
We walked around the square for a few minutes before going
into the basilica. Turns out that taking picture with pigeons is a huge trend
in Venice? People pay to have pigeons climb all over them and take pictures
with them. >>Here is a picture of parents having pigeons climb all over their
baby. We also found that they harass people to buy roses. We actually had to
yell at people to stop touching us because it was so irritating.
Anyways, we went inside St. Mark’s Basilica and it was
amazing. Everything was gold and it was breathtaking. We walked around the
inside for a short while and I prayed. There’s something amazing about European
churches that I just love.
Afterwards, we decided to finally do what we came to Venice
for: gondola! We found our way to the Grand Canal where there were about a
billion gondoliers harassing people (by the end of our trip, Kev said we needed
to walk around with four signs on us: “We already rode a gondola. We don’t want
pictures with pigeons. We don’t want to eat at your restaurant. Don’t touch me
with your rose.” I guess that’s the price you pay for going to a touristy
city!)
The gondola was as amazing as we thought it would be. We
started out on the Grand Canal and then made our way to the smaller canals. We
passed under the biggest bridge in Venice which is made of marble. We saw St.
Mark’s house, Casanova’s house, and found out that Venice is made up of 118
islands, 170 canals and 400 bridges. The oldest bridge is the Bridge of Sighs,
which was built in 1602 and was given its name because convicts crossing over
it to the New Prison would sigh at their final view of Venice.
The ride was about 30 minutes long and we were riding behind
another gondola so our gondoliers were speaking Italian back and forth to each
other. Something about listening to old men yell Italian on gondolas on the
small canals in Venice is very endearing.
We asked our gondolier where the best place to get gelato
was, so we followed his directions and we think
we found it because it was the best gelato I’ve ever had. And I’ve had a lot of
gelato. Kev got pistachio and I got caramel and their award winning chocolate.
My mouth is watering.
After our long day, we finally headed back to the hotel
around 4:00 and got ready to do a little bit of shopping and go to dinner. I had researched a thousand good
restaurants to eat at in Venice and I was determined to find this one that was
a 20 euro flat fee for appetizers, dinner, dessert, drinks and there was no
menu and live music! Again, Kevin and I explored the creepiest part of Venice
until we gave up and headed for a restaurant we could stumble into. We got pizza
as an appetizer (obviously), pasta in a lobster sauce, pork chops in a mushroom
sauce, tiramisu and a bottle of red wine. Other than the Christmas music, it
was perfection.
We lucked out with the weather in that it was almost sunny
on Wednesday and didn’t rain until that night. Thursday we woke up and it was
the most beautiful day. Completely clear skies and 60 degrees. Seeing Venice
like that was so beautiful.
Baci,
A
Here's a few other pictures that I loved from our trip:
(J'aime beaucoup l'Italie. J'ai adoré que le voyage de Kevin n'était pas seulement lui montrant la France, mais l'expérience de Venise ensemble. Nous avons pu voir comment Nice est influencé par l'Italie, mais Venise est si différent que n'importe quel autre endroit dans le monde. J'ai aimé que nous avons eu à partager le voyage avec l'un autre.)
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