Scott had his presentation this morning and I snuck into the conference to watch. He did a really good job! We made some plans with Amy O and her boyfriend – we’re meeting for dinner in Rome by the Trevi Fountain. I feel so grand saying that!
We left for Venice shortly after that. The train ride was pretty uneventful and we got to see a little bit more of the Tuscan countryside which was right out of a postcard. Absolutely lovely. The clouds got a little thicker when we started to near Venice, and I’m sad to say…we got rained on. With our backpacks. (sigh) On the train we discovered that the transportation I’d assumed we would take – a water bus or vaporetto – is wicked expensive. Way to read the fine print, Jamie! It would be 12 euro for us. So we decided to walk, being the adventurous young people that we are.
Let me start off by saying Venice is WEIRD! It’s gorgeous and really breathtaking, but it’s so weird! No cars are allowed on the island, which is actually a big relief since the driving was kind of erratic and worrisome in Florence. Many times Scott and I said to each other “I don’t know why anyone would want to rent a car in Italy…” Anyway, we had a map of the streets and half followed that and half followed internal compasses and instincts. We had to pay .50 cents to cross the Grand Canal on a service gondola, which was really interesting…
Then…it started raining. Like really steadily raining on us. It was not as good as it could be. We were alright. The streets are pretty much sidewalk sized, so when they’re packed w/ tourists and everyone whips out the umbrellas it gets very annoying to walk (or maybe the annoying thing was that we were soaked and carrying 40lb backpacks? IDK) By some dumb luck right when we were totally convinced we had taken the wrong street, out of the corner of my eye I look down an alley and there is our hotel. It was amazing! See...how did we not see this?? ;)
The hotel is cute – The Locanda al Leon! Our room is very comfortable and we were just thankful to take off our wet shoes and get some dry clothes on. It looks as if it might have let up raining a little so we’ll venture out for some gelato and sightseeing in a little I think!
So, I’m trying very hard to give Venice a fair shot – the rain is the real issue at this point but like always, we’ll make it work and motor through!
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(after walking around for dinner & dessert)…so, whoever designed this city was messed up. It’s really hard to find the thing you’re looking for. And by hard I mean like impossible. We wrestled with trying to find a few restaurants in the Rialto Bridge area that were in the guide books…yeah, we looked for like 1 hour and said screw it. A lesson we learned today, don’t put off getting food. It’s better to snack now and be in good spirits than to hold out and be hungry and crabby. We ended up getting pizza at some place where a bunch of non-Italians were working. Eh well, it was good and to our hungry,wet and weary selves, it was great!
We found our way back to Piazza San Marco and it luckily stopped raining after dinner. It was fabulous in the evening all lit up! Scott took some great night-vision (or night-vish, as I say) shots which capture the essence!
St. Mark's Square!
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