A quick preface: sorry about the weird characters. This crazy Italian computer
doesn't like my apostrophes - I typed it on our computer & brought
it downstairs on a flash drive to get it uploaded! I typed this last night, so at the end of our first day.
It’s been a long day! Or I guess I should say a long 2 days!! We finally made it to Venice. After a 4 hour layover in Chicago and a 4 hour layover in Philly, we thought we were never going to get here! Our flight from Philly was excruciating. Chris had a lap sitter next to him (her name was Gracie), and while she was adorable and made friends with Chris, every time she woke up she cried! Fortunately, I tuned her out most of the time and was actually able to get a few hours sleep. Everyone’s grateful for that! They showed the movie Duplicity for the first couple of hours on the plane. Seriously, that movie stunk! Movies like that are why I don’t go to the movies very often any more. We were thrilled when it was over, but still watched every darn minute of it because when you’re on a plane for 9 hours, a 2 hour diversion is a good thing. I won’t lie, though, when the stupid thing was over and I did the math and we still had 6.5 hours left, we both almost cried.
We were crazy happy to land in Venice. It was a truly surreal moment. We planned and thought over this trip for so long, to actually be here seemed unreal! As we landed, there was regular ‘ole land on one side and water on the other. We were in the middle of the plane, so we couldn’t actually see Venice itself, but we could see pieces of the lagoon and it got us 100% excited! Our excitement would prove to be short-lived, though.
You can always tell you’re not in the US the instant you walk off the plane. Everything looks different, even the jetway was cool here. But, everything looks dim no matter what country you’re in when NONE of your luggage arrives! We were 2 of about 50 or so whose luggage didn’t make it. It was VERY frustrating! Everyone we spoke to said they had a 4 hour layover in Philly and couldn’t imagine how the managed to misplace all that luggage. Seriously, it was at least 100 pieces of luggage. Fortunately, the board in the baggage claim announced that delivery service had ended & I’d noticed the lost luggage window when I was looking for an ATM (which I didn’t find) & we headed straight over there. After everyone cued up, the line went pretty much all the way across the baggage claim area. Holy moley!
Everyone around us was leaving for a cruise today or tomorrow. The ladies in front of us were departing at 6 pm today. We thanked our lucky stars (and our travel acumen) that we were spending our time in Venice before the cruise rather than after. We saw all the silver linings of this whole affair, but I’m not sure my positive attitude would have remained so fully intact if we were leaving say today! We also had a fully stocked carry on, so we were fine with the whole thing. Actually, it made getting over to the island that much easier. We didn’t have to schlep 3 suitcases all over tarnation!
After an hour, we finally got through the line; mind you, there were only like 5 groups in front of us and there were three people manning the window! It’s what you should expect here, though. There is no reason to expect anything to get done fast here, so you might as well just go with the flow. We finally went through what they refer to as customs (walking through the “Nothing to Declare” door) and were free! We hit the ATM which would only give out 250 Euros at a time. Hello, you want us to spend money, let us get the money! With our extremely small fortune in Euros, we hit the snack desk and got salami sandwiches, but not before Chris was reprimanded by the worker girl that you HAVE to pay first.
We ate our sandwiches as we made our way along the 5 min. walk to the water transportation. We’d planned to splurge and take a water taxi since we had so much luggage, but since we didn’t have it, it didn’t make sense to spend that much money. I still wish we had taken the taxi, but don’t kid yourself, the ferry was cool. We hit some of the surrounding islands as we made our way to St. Mark’s square. I mildly regretted not taking the taxi as we saw the people going by us moving directly to their hotels and not taking the scenic route, but there was something nice about the scenic route. The slow introduction to Venice seemed just the way it should be.
And finally, there we were in front of St. Mark’s Square and the Doge’s palace. We are so thrilled to be here again. We were here four years ago on our first anniversary trip and we’ve talked about coming back, but I wasn’t sure we actually would or at least that it would be so soon. My wanderlust keeps us going to new and different places, but there’s something so nice about revisiting places you’ve been before. Know where things are and how they work makes enjoying a place that much easier. You don’t have to work at it quite as hard.
We got off the ferry and went directly to St. Mark’s Square. There was another ferry that would have put us closer to our hotel, but we didn’t want to wait and with no bags to worry about, it was easy to walk to the hotel. Actually, that depends on your definition of easy. This place is lousy with tourists. Yes, I know I am one of them, but egads are there a lot of people here. We thought it was bad last time and that was in Sept. This is the height of tourist season, and I swear the whole world has descended upon Venice! I think all of Europe comes here in the summer. We’ve seen some Americans, but mostly Europeans. And why wouldn’t they come here? Just standing there in the Square, you feel it; Venice is a magical place unlike anywhere else in the world.
We wound our way through the VERY narrow streets trying to find our hotel. Fortunately, I’d printed a map of the hotel’s location at home. I left the map at home on the desk, but I’d taken a good look at it when I printed it and we bought a great map at the tourist desk in the airport, so with just a minimum of lost-ness, we found our hotel.
Our room is……well, I think the word decent describes it. It’s not the best we’ve stayed in, it’s certainly not the worst. You pay through the nose in Venice, so we’re going with it. There’s A/C, breakfast, and wi-fi (that you pay for) plus an en-suite bathroom. That’s not always a guarantee in this part of the world!
We’d planned to drop our carry-ons, freshen up a little and go out and walk around a bit, but the exhaustion hit us like a ton of bricks, and we napped. I’m usually not a very good napper, but boy I did a bang up job this time! We napped for a good 2 hours and decided we’d better drag ourselves out of bed or we’d waste the whole day sleeping! When we went downstairs to leave, what to our wonderous eyes should appear? Our bags! Yay! If itàs going to be that easy, everyone should have their luggage lost in Venice!
We had an outstanding afternoon wandering around with no agenda. If you’ve never travelled with me, then you don’t know that I go nowhere without an agenda. I-must-see-it-all! As I’ve gotten older and a tad wiser and thanks in large part to the mellowing effects of my husband, I’ve realized that it’s not always necessary to see every sight on the list. Traipsing from one place to another from dusk till dawn doesn’t always give you a real view of a place. That’s a large part of why we’re here for a whole week. So we have time to enjoy and soak it all in.
Back to our wandering. We’re staying very close to the Rialto Bridge, so we headed that direction. You can try just walking straight over it, but it’s tough. It’s charms suck you in. There’s the shops, including several jewelry shops, that line the bridge (I’ve already found some things I MUST HAVE!) and then there’s the view. Oh wow! The view. Here you are, standing on a bridge that’s been there just this side of forever looking at buildings that have been standing for hundreds of years and “driving” by them are gondolas. It just takes your breath away. I don’t believe anyone who says they aren’t entranced by gondolas. They add to the mystique of the city.
We wandered around the Rialto area, looking at all the cheesy souvenir stalls with the occasional non-cheesy one thrown in here and there, like the one selling scarves and ties. Where else do you see a street vedor selling scarves but in Italy? We actually walked by that stall several times today, and one of the times I got one of those in-your-face reminders that we’re not in Kansas any more Toto! There was a family there looking at the wares all jamming out to techno music. The dad was thumping his chest to the beat, the mom was dancing, and the teenage son was bobbing his head. It all seemed so perfectly right.
We continued wandering, finding our favorite little bar/restaurant from our last visit and grabbing a slice of pizza from a little street-front place. Oh the pizza! You’ve never had pizza so good as here. It fairly melts in your mouth. And this isn’t the best we’ve had. We actually got some from this same place last time, and it was better than we remembered. We’re hoping to happen upon our fave place from last time. We’ll know if we see it, but this city is a veritable labyrinth, so directions can be iffy.
Pizza in hand, we ambled down the street to another square (there are lots of them here, big ones, little ones, ones with churches, ones with little parks) where a band had set up and was playing great jazzy type music. They’d been there for a while and had a good little crowd of locals and tourists. It was a great scene. We hung out for a while, just soaking it, enjoying that fact that here we are, in Venice, just hanging out. Very cool.
Eventually we decided to move on, and just around the corner from the band, we found the Rialto floating market, which is hosting a Thai market to commemorate 140 years of friendship (or something like that, can’t remember what the sign said & yes, it was in English, there’s English everywhere here) between Thailand and Venice. Whatever the case, we were the beneficiaries of the whole affair. Once we finally figured out what the heck it was all about, we dove in. We sampled wines (of the Italian variety, we didn’t question it), beer (of the Thai variety), and food. Oh my, the food! We had meat on a stick and this big dumpling-like thing filled with savory meat. I don’t know what it was, but I know I could eat it every day the rest of my life!
We made our way to the site of the local market which still had a few produce vendors selling their wares. I love markets. Love the fresh foods, love the bright colors of foods that don’t have to be violated with all the things we put on and in them to make them last in a super market. At the end of the market is the fish market, which has been there for literally centuries. All of the action was long over for the day, but the smell lingered. I can’t imagine what it was like hundreds of years ago! That smell reminded me of a show I saw on the travel channel. It was about the cruise ship that you actually buy an apartment on and then travel around the world on it whenever you like. It showed the members attending a special dinner during carnival at the fish market. I was thinking, if I could smell the fish hours after the stalls had closed up for the day (and gone, there was nothing in the place), how did they get rid of it for the dinner? And if they didn’t, can you imagine eating there? Ick!
From the market, we wandered through the back streets of Venice. We followed quiet, narrow lanes and saw little canals flanked by window boxes overflowing with flowers. We ate gelato on a bridge over a canal (I couldn’t finish mine…I know, crazy!) where we saw a guy walking with an 8 ft. oar in his hand. We found a large square with huge trees and restaurants in the corners and benches fully of locals chatting. We saw gondoliers hanging out trying to convince people to come for a ride and shopkeeps standing in their doorways trying to entince shoppers. All in all, it was a fabulous afternoon.
We came back to our room, changed for dinner & headed back out. We started out at our fave little bar from our last visit for cheap, but really good wine and prosecco and some really crappy cicchetti (bar snacks). Everything was fried, including the anchovies, which weren’t fried enough. We had them in the Cinque Terre and actually enjoyed them, but I think maybe that’s the only place in the world they taste good! We went ahead and ate a bunch of the food because, well, we paid 10 euros for it & we didn’t want to be rude, but man….ickk!
We still needed to do something about dinner and decided to wander until we found something. We stopped at a few places and finally stopped a little restaurant that we later realized we’d been to before. It turned out to be a chain now, but it didn’t matter, it was perfect. The food was fabulous. We got a cheese and salami plate that could have been a meal in and of itself. Chris had spaghetti carbonarra and I had a gnocchi concoction and we shared œ a liter of a fabulous white wine. Neither of the flavors were my absolute favorite, but they were both great! The waiters were wonderful and attentive and full of personality. We spoke very briefly with the guys (who turned out to be a couple) at the table next to us. The waiter even took off running after them when they left their bag from the lingerie store at the table!
Full and sleepy, we strolled back to our hotel passing by groups of Italian teens hanging out in front of ancient buildings. We couldn’t help but stop on the Rialto and enjoy the view by night. Just gorgeous! We stopped and watched a dance troupe on the street. They were slightly lacking. I’ve seen better street groups, and we decided they’d be voted of America’s Best Dance Crew straight away! We finally reached our hotel and poured ourselves into bed exhausted, but excited to do it all over again tomorrow!
