Venice

I had a three day weekend last week, so we decided to take a quick trip down to Venice.  We found a good deal on Ryanair and went down Friday morning and left Saturday night.  We did almost no research on Venice before we left so we had no idea what we wanted to see or do when we got there, but we've discovered that we love just wandering cities and stopping at anything that looks interesting.  This served us well again in Venice, except for our arrival.  We took a bus from the airport into the city and got off with no map and no idea how to get to our hotel.  We purchased a 2 Euro map from a street vendor and just started walking.

We quickly discovered that Venice can be a difficult place to get around.  There are no roads in the city, just canals and with sidewalks on either side.  We tried to just wander in the general direction of our hotel, but ran into countless dead ends.  After a bit of wandering and a quick stop for lunch, we finally found our hotel.  When we checked in, they told us that they had upgraded our room to a canal view, so we had a lovely room with a little balcony overlooking the canal.

After getting settled in the room, we went out to wander the city.  The only thing we knew was that St. Marco's plaza was the main attraction in Vencie, so we took off in that direction.  We

strolled for about an hour through tiny little alleys and along canals, stopping to get some gelato at one of the countless stands throughout the city.  St. Marco's plaza is a beautiful square with an amazing church and bell tower, but just packed with people.  We couldn't even find the end of the line to get into the church, so we just took in the view for a few minutes and then wandered through the streets again.  We stopped at a cafe for a cold drink and enjoyed watching the people and soaked up the 75 degree, sunny weather...something we haven't seen much of living in Belgium.  After a quick nap at the hotel, we went out and got a wonderful Italian pizza for dinner.  Then, we purchased a bottle of wine and went back to the hotel to sip wine (water for preggers) on our balcony and enjoy the view.

Day two in Venice was more of the same...just wandering the city, stopping for coffee and gelato here and there.  It was fascinating to see how Venetians handle their everyday tasks with no cars or trucks.  The police cruise the city in boats, even ambulances and mail are boats too.  It's very strange to spend two days in a major city without seeing a single car, truck, motorcycle, or even a bicycle.  Everything is done on the water.  It really makes Venice very unique and charming, since it operates like no other city in the world.

The one problem we found with Venice is the cost of traveling on the water.  Gondola rides were 70 Euro per person and a water taxi (which are beautiful boats by the way) from our hotel to the bus station was 70 Euro.  We passed on both of these and used the "bus" system, but even that was 16 Euro / person for a day pass.  The cost really forces you to walk everywhere, which as I mentioned can be difficult if you're really trying to get to a specific location.

Saturday evening we made our way back to the airport and after a brief delay due to the hail and lightening storm that passed through, we were on our way.  Overall it was a wonderful trip.  Venice was the fourth Italian city that we've visited, and probably our favorite as well.