Venizia

As requested, here is more than just one picture of Venice...

Simona kindly arranged a train ticket and hotel room for us in Venice. However, unbeknownst to us, the subway system was down, and we ended up walking and then running and then running really fast about 15 blocks, hopping on the Eurostar just as the doors were closing…whew!! Really, it was one of those movie moments running through a foreign train station yelling directions back and forth to each other, spotting the train, and then RUN RUN RUN to catch the train….then again, we’ve had a few of those running moments on late weekend nights in Grand Central (after arguing in the cab about whether we’ll make it or not and what we’ll do if we don’t) but that’s another story. I do want to point out though, that I am the one who believes we can make it and we always do!

Venice was....confusingly wonderful. I’m not quite sure how to describe it...at first, it seemed so surreal that it almost felt like Disneyland. But as you get away from the tourist areas and get lost in the alleys and canalways, you see it's truly unique esthetic. It was amazing and beautiful and confusing and a little touristy and quaint all at the same time. Venice deserves a whole blog unto itself or even better it deserves a trip of your own. The city is sinking slowly into the sea and won’t exist forever so book your tickets now, you can fly right into Marco Polo airport and take a water taxi from there. The buildings are actually crumbling giving it the feel of a lost time and place. Our hotel was a good encapsulation of Venice. We checked in and the porter took us to our room via the elevator to the second floor, but our room was on the first floor and as he led us down narrow turning hallway after another he said in broken English, “no other way.” Venice is alley after alley after bridge over canal after bridge over canal and occasionally opening into a square with a church and all of it beautiful, quaint and charming. The most heavily tourist areas are the Piazza San Marco and the Rialto Bridge. We stayed in a tiny alley just a few blocks off of St. Marks which was perfect for our one night there. We took a lovely gondola ride and were serenaded by an opera singer along the way (Lance insisted on kissing me under every bridge where Japanese tourists were taking pictures of the Gondolas, “give the people what they want” or something to that effect was his excuse). We had a lovely diner in a tiny little restaurant down another unknown, undescript alley where everything was in Italian so we just guessed at what was good and weren’t disappointed. From there we sat on the banks of a canal under the Rialto bridge (we were literally on the bank, when water taxis went by we had to lift our feet from getting wet) and watched Venice slowly parade by in front of us. We ended our night in Venice in Saint Marks Square late and had a drink and watched couples dance under the moonlight.

The next day we took a water taxi back towards the train station and saw so many things we missed, so many neighborhoods, churches, restaurants, markets and museums that were totally undiscovered to us. In the maze (very literally) that is Venice, every corner has a new discovery and 24 hours was not nearly enough to discover even a portion of it, but enough to keep it romantic, exciting and mysterious to us. We’ll be back some day.

And, here's the pictures!