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Thursday, July 18, 2013

Italy Part II {Venice}

After spending a few days in Rome, it was time to head to Venice! The train ride was about 3 hours through the hills of Tuscany, which was gorgeous but also very nauseating! 
So I did not take any pictures on the ride because I was chugging Sprite/trying not to throw up like it was my job. 

But here is when we pulled into Venice:

For those who don't know (like me before we visited), Venice is an island shaped like a fish! There are no cars at all, and everyone gets around by boat! After my motion sickness on the train, I was super nervous about being on a boat all of the time, but I did just fine the whole time we were in Venice!


This is us on our very first vaporetto ride! The vaporetto is the taxi system Venetians (and all 393748957 tourists) use to get around!

I was obsessed with all of the little canals in Venice! Everywhere we turned was gorgeous and romantic!


Venice is also THE most confusing city I've ever been to because of all these canals! You'd just be walking along and then the road would just end....into a canal! Travis and I both have fairly good senses of direction, and we got lost every day, multiple times (even with maps and written directions!)

Our first day of sightseeing/getting lost on an hourly basis, we saw:

St. Mark's square (with tacky advertising and lots of nuns!)...




{of course, they had to be doing renovation on the church! Ugh}

Rilato Bridge...


And we also took a cruise down the Grand Canal on the vaporetto (we refused to pay tons of money for an official tour, so we just did this and it was just as good, I think!). 




Then we went up in the Campanile to see all of Venice from above! It was amazing!





For dinner, we ate at Osteria da Alberto, which I must recommend to you if you are ever in Venice. The risotto was phenomenal


{disclaimer: I am not a food photographer.}

We also went to back to St. Mark's Square...it is so pretty at night and there are musicians performing at all of the little cafes along the square. 


For our second full day in Venice, we took a boat tour to Burano, Murano and Torcello! My mom recommended this to us, and I would also recommend it to anyone visiting Venice! It was one of my top 5 favorite things about our whole trip!


First up, Murano! Famous for Murano glass...so we went to a glass factory for a demonstration. It was amazing to watch the guy turn this....


...into this:

Is that not cray cray?!?!? 

Murano itself was actually really beautiful, too...


...but not as beautiful as our next stop, Burano!




I was obsessed with all of the different colored houses! Kind of reminded me of an Italian Rainbow Row (in Charleston)! Apparently, the houses are painted such pretty colors so in the winter, the fishermen know which island is Burano. 

Next, we went to Torcello, which is the oldest, but most boring, island!


This was about the extent of the sights on Torcello...not a lot there!

When we got back to Venice, I convinced Travis we HAD to take a gondola ride! (Because we hadn't been on a boat all morning or anything....)


A few things about the gondola ride:
-You will be on a boat with other people (unless you want to pay like 80 euros for it to be just the two of you...but we are cheap.)
-The gondoliers don't sing until the evening gondola rides, and those cost even more money
-Going under the teensy bridges was a little scary!
-You can bring your own drinks on and have a little gondola party (we didn't realize this till we saw other boats doing it!)

Other than that, I'm glad we did it, because it is something you must do while in Venice!




After that, it was time for dinner and our night train to Southern Italy! 
I'll be posting all about Sorrento, Positano and Capri very soon!!

2 comments:

  1. I had no idea there were just boats in Venice! Crazy!

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  2. I loved this post and can't wait to read your other ones! We are living in Spain right now and I love reading about other people's European vacations!

    Venice looks and sounds amazing! I really hope we get the chance to go there someday.

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