Venice

Day 10:  Wednesday 25 June 2014

So as I mentioned at the end of my Florence post, we left for the train station in Florence early Wednesday morning.  It was about a 2.5-3 hour train ride from Florence to Venice, so we arrived to Venice around noon. We stayed at a small hotel on the mainland. We weren't supposed to check in until about 2pm, but Michael and I both decided we did not want to carry all of our bags around Venice with us, so I said, let's just go and see if the room's ready! As usual, I was right. :) Just kidding, just kidding.  It took us about 20 minutes to walk from the train station to the hotel. By the time we figured out how to get there and walked in they said it was no problem for us to check in early! Thank goodness, or else we would have had to wait for an hour before we could start exploring Venice! Here is a map for reference. We stayed in the town of Mestre and took a 15 minute train ride to the actual island of Venice. If you ever want to go to Venice, do it this way. It'll save you 100 bucks on your lodging costs.

The biggest bummer of our day in Venice, our only day in Venice, was that it was raining. By the time we got to the island it was about 2pm and I'll admit, I was a little grumpy that is was raining so hard and of course, I was famished.  Mary + hungry = not happy. I'll admit though, the rain wasn't too bad.  In all honesty I sort of imagined Venice as a rainy type of place. So, it was still a good time.

We found a cozy pizza/pasta/everything Italian restaurant.  I mention the word cozy because it was pretty chilly! I wore pants and a scarf and was really glad I did!  

Michael had another pizza! You really can't eat too much pizza when you're in Italy! I had my first and only Italian pasta dish at this restaurant. It was OK, not the best lasagna I've ever had though. I like my Mama's better!

One of the first classic Venice sights we experienced. See, it's even pretty when it's cloudy!

So easy to get lost in these narrow streets....but it's all a part of the fun!

Desperately trying to get our google map to load so we can find Saint Mark's Square! Probably took us another 20 minutes after this....

Enjoying myself in the rain....SO GLAD we brought this big umbrella. We needed it on multiple occasions.

Saint Mark's Cathedral

We finally found Saint Mark's Square!! Look at all those umbrellas.

Doge's Palace

Funny story about this picture. We found out on this trip that it's hard to take couple pictures.  Normally you find someone else or another couple that are OBVIOUSLY tourists, offer to take their picture and then have them do yours in exchange. Before someone snapped this for us, I was trying to take a picture "selfie-style" - - only to fail.  A nice man walking by with his wife and kid said, "I saw you guys struggling over here, let me take your picture for you!" It was pretty funny. I guess we looked pretty ridiculous. I love Michael's smile in this picture!!

He was so nice he took two for us!

Typical tourist trap shop, but the masks are pretty cool, you've gotta admit.

This is my favorite picture. I'm definitely putting this in a frame for our travel wall.

So, I know, this post is kind of lame compared to my first two.  To be honest we didn't really plan anything for Venice. Michael had been once before and I really just wanted to "see it." The only thing we toured was the inside of St. Mark's Cathedral, which you can't take pictures inside of.  It's definitely unique to many of the other cathedrals we'd seen between Rome and Florence.  It's very dark, but everything is gold-plated.  It would have been more spectacular on a sunny day, but it was beautiful nonetheless.

After a couple hours of getting lost in the streets we ate some gelato in St. Mark's square and listened to some street musicians play music, my Venice dream was satisfied.  We were very tired from the fast pace of Rome and Florence, so once 5pm hit we were ready to head back and go to bed. Just our luck, the sun started to come out as we were leaving. :)

This is the view of Venice as you walk out of the train station. Pretty amazing. Now that I'm looking at this I'm remembering how refreshing it was that there were NO CARS in Venice. I was so tired of hearing police and ambulance sirens in Rome and Florence. Venice was much more peaceful, and I loved that.

Okay, so anyone who knows me, or my mom, knows we hate driving or being transported over bridges. This picture is from our departure, but on the way onto the island our train track was literally right on the edge of the water. I kept (irrationally) saying, "Michael, if this thing tips, we're dead..." and no joke, anytime we got on to a train the first thing I made sure to look for was the tool for breaking glass, because they are on every train. I know it's irrational, but it is seriously one of my worst fears. 

A peek into our vintage hotel room.  It was a little dated, but comfortable enough for one night! We were always so tired we could have slept in a cardboard box and been comfortable.  They had a good breakfast the next morning. Funniest thing ever was that they played American country music in the breakfast room...I was like, "Michael, you think they're playing this because we're American and they think we like it?" They played Gretchen Wilson's Redneck Woman and I about died laughing. It was hilarious. Venice was wonderful, but we were ready to see a new country...off to Switzerland the next day! Post to come soon.... :)