Venezia

We were only going to spend the day at Florence and catch the late night train to Venice so we could get an early start in Venice the next day. After dinner on my own, I met the rest of the group at the train station at 830p for the 2-3 hour train ride. Kevin wouldn’t be joining us in Venice; he was taking a train back to Rome. So it was just the five of us: me, Kristine, Will, Jessica, and Velma.

Platform 9. All aboard!!! (Just kidding. They don’t announce such a thing.)

It was near or past midnight by the time we got to Venice. We were all tired and sleepy. One problem: we didn’t exactly know where the hotel was! We asked around… we asked more people… we checked with other hotels… we called our hotel on the phone… we walked aimlessly… we tried relying on the Venice address system. It was by far the low point of this trip since we walked all around Venice for TWO HOURS! I’m guessing we covered 6 miles. We finally found our hotel in the heart of the Jewish Ghetto, and it was past 2 am. WTF. Seriously WTF!!!

Oh wait. The comedy of errors didn’t stop there. Trying to keep the lodging costs at a minimum, we crammed the FIVE of us in a single room having two TWIN beds. We put the beds side by side and slept perpendicular like a can of sardines. Literally no room to move much less roll around. By necessity, we made a pact to sleep facing up. Haha. At least I was on one of the ends, followed by Jessica, Velma in the middle, Kristine next to her, and Will at the other end. I was literally touching Jessica’s side from calf to tricep. Thank god we’re family. Worse yet, the minimal covers had me using a towel as a blanket. We were laughing at ourselves so hard we couldn’t shut up to go to sleep. Geez, what a night!

The next morning was a new day. Frankly, I was starting to hate this forsaken place the night before. The city looked grimy and the labyrinth of streets was pissing me off. Effin’ Venice.

What some sunlight and a new day brings! We were up and at ‘em pretty early to check out and see the city.

In the daylight, this city of canals is quite amazing. Walking from street to street is an adventure itself because hardly is the journey a straight line and one is guaranteed to encounter several pedestrian bridges. Frankly I had no idea how other people seemed to know where to go. I was relying on my iPhone OffMaps app.

In the small streets of Venice, there are stores everywhere yearning to be entered and browsed. We stopped into a store specializing in Murano glass.

Venice glass is globally renowned, especially those from the nearby Murano islands where one can see glass artisans make their glassware. Unfortunately, the Murano islands isn’t reachable by foot and is reached via water taxi. We didn’t have time for that, so maybe next time.

I was really fond of these Murano glass paper weights but they were really pricey. No surprise because of the level of craftsmanship needed.

Walking the Venice streets. They were packed with tourists like ourselves.

We finally got to the epicenter of many of Venice’s historic sights. Literally within 100 yards of each other were a historic church, an iconic tower, a palace, and one of Europe’s most famous pedestrian squares.

St. Mark’s Basilica

Piazza San Marco. A huge square. In the background is the Basilica and the Campanile di San Marco (the tower)

Me in front of the Campanile di San Marco.

Me in front of the Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace)

At this point of the trip, we were kinda museum-ed and church-ed out. So no more line waiting for us. We’d just see these places from the outside =).

Gondolas parked on the shore line.

Another gondola photo

Another canal photo.

Me near some parked gondolas.

One of Velma’s bucket list items was to go on a gondola ride. It took some convincing but since we’re in Venice why not! So after lunch (we ate at an Italian Luby’s), we went to the Grand Canal (the largest canal that winds through Venice) to find an available gondolier.

On the gondola, approaching the famous Rialto Bridge. I was sitting up front.

On the gondola going underneath one of the many pedestrian bridges. While the gondolas are pretty shallow, the ends do curve up quite high. So in a couple instances, the gondolier had to tilt the gondola to avoid scraping the bridges.

Cool canal water photo while on the gondola.

Our gondolier. Vin Diesel’s doppelganger.

Nice enough guy, but we think he was annoyed by us taking non-stop photos. He was under the impression that we weren’t listening to his facts and tour commentary. But we were! Case in point: to be a gondolier, you have to be born into a gondolier family. Also, currently there is only one female gondolier in Venice.

After the gondola ride, we shopped the Venice streets a bit more, but we headed back to the train station to catch the afternoon train back to Rome.

So that’s it. There was one final dinner in Rome at our favorite place Da Francesco (yes, we ate here again), but the whirlwind vaca was coming to an end. The next day, we’d all be taking our early, early morning flights back to the US.

Next post: a series of top-5 lists as judged by me during my time in Europe.

Ciao from Venice.