Italy - Venice

October 13-14, 2010

We left Greece feeling a little discouraged - while we were so glad we got to go and see all the history, it wasn't quite what we expected. We were afraid that the rest of Europe might not live up to our expectations...until we got to Venice. Venice was amazing. We had taken a 30+ hour ferry ride to get there, sleeping on the floor both nights on the boat, and that is bound to make a cranky Courtney when we arrived in Venice at 7:30am. As soon as we stepped off the boat though, we could tell we were going to love it - we didn't even want to stop exploring to take a nap!

Passing the time on the ferry - we played a lot of cards! 

We got lost trying to get to St. Mark's Square (what else is new), but we didn't mind because we got to see "real-life Venice". It was trash collection day there but there are no cars in Venice, therefore no garbage trucks. So all the residents put out their trash on the street in the morning, and the garbage collectors come through with their big carts on wheels to throw all the trash bags in. I thought it was interesting to see how they adapted an everyday task to their car-less way of living :)

Cute little sidewalk cafe in Venice

We finally made our way to Piazza San Marco and it was well worth the walk! 

Entrance to the city - public executions used to occur between the columns!

St. Mark's Basilica

We wandered around the square and then decided we'd try to find our hotel so I could drop off my annoying little suitcase (nothing screams tourist more than my little suitcase rolling down the street behind me!). We took the awesome water bus to the island of Lido, which is right off of Venice and where our hotel was located. We stepped off of the water bus at Lido and could see our hotel from there!! We were so excited because we have had some serious problems finding our hotels in the past two weeks (we've literally spent hours trying to find them), so it was the highlight of our day to find it :)

Our lovely hotel 

On the island of Lido - it was coooold!

Bikes everywhere!!

It was a cute little hotel, and they let us check in at 11am, which was so helpful because we were in desperate need of freshening up! We wandered around the pretty island of Lido for a bit and then headed back to Venice to explore some more. We took the water bus down the Grand Canal, and stopped at the end for our first Italian meal, and our first taste of gelato (definitely not our last taste though!). 

Gondolas on the Grand Canal

Super excited for gelato!!!

On the Grand Canal

We got to see the Rialto Bridge, the Bridge of Sighs, and go inside St. Mark's Basilica. Everywhere we looked was so beautiful, I took so many pictures! Venice has been my dream vacation destination for a while now, and the fact that I actually got to go there blows my mind! 

Rialto Bridge

Bridge of Sighs

Inside St. Mark's Basilica

Inside St. Mark's Basilica

At the end of the day we tried to find the Jewish Ghetto (the first ghetto in the world apparently!), and we found some of the buildings, but we couldn't find any of the five synagogues before it got dark :( But while walking around we did enjoy the dogs that were everywhere! In Greece there were a lot of stray dogs, but in Venice there were so many dogs with owners (which we liked to see), and they were welcome everywhere - cafes, hotels, boats, anywhere! 

Buildings from the Jewish Ghetto

The water came right up onto the sidewalk here!

Yum!!

We wrapped up the night by buying me a sweet Venice t-shirt (I couldn't resist, I loved that place) and headed off for Rome in the morning!