Mr. Nine wanted to make sure we go before the whole entire city parishes underwater. They’re saying this could happen someday and we were there only 48 hours, but we were told that currently at least three times a week St. Marks Square is underwater. The morning that we were leaving the tide was coming in and they were putting up planks up off the ground to get around. Our boat barely made it out in time to catch our flight.
When you land, a car takes you to an area where you get the boat to head to your hotel. I swear our heads were on swivels. It was amazing. We have been worried about the weather coming in, but the tide turned, and we had a beautiful couple days there. To be honest, really all you need is 2 to 3 days in Venice, it’s not that big. With that being said we did get lost on the second day and after 32,000 steps we finally found out where we needed to be, lol! But that’s just it we really didn’t have anywhere we needed to be and what better city to get lost in the Venice.
To get to Venice, we had to actually fly from Geneva, Switzerland with a layover in Zürich. Hindsight’s 2020 but we would have actually taken a luxury train from Zürich to Venice and not even gone to Geneva at all. I will touch more about that when I do my post on our time in Switzerland.
That night, we did have reservations to take a gondola ride at dusk. That was one of the things I was most excited about. Yes, it too was magical, but I will say you’re supposed to have 30 minutes on the boats. I had read in other reviews; they cheat you and we only ended up with 18 minutes. Plus, our gondolier was not very friendly and never spoke to us, but that’s OK. All Mr. Nine and I needed was each other and floating through the canals. Just look how cute our boat was. I really wanted someone to take a picture of the two of us instead of just selfies, I wish we would’ve hired one of the gondola rides with a Photographer built-in.
I was like that's the Gondola Guy, lol!"
Also note, there are more than 400 license gondoliers in Venice. I love that the majority of them wear the striped shirts. But I hope that there’s a majority that are friendly, lol. This guy was not our gondolier, lol!
Remember how we hired a Photographer in Paris? Mr. Nine even asked me if we were going to do on this trip especially in Venice and I wish we would’ve.
After the ride, we had reservations at a restaurant recommended to us by our travel agent called Antico Martini. Oh my gosh, can I tell you it was absolutely delicious. It was charming. The food was as you would expect it to be. DELICIOUS AUTHENTIC ITALIAN!! We got to sit outside; we just loved it. It was probably one of our favorite meals of the trip.
Then of course we went in search of gelato. For overseas trips we watched a lot of videos from a couple named Ian and Ana on YouTube. This was their favorite gelato in Venice, the gelato at Gelatoteca Suso
and it was amazing. Here is another tip: When you are looking for gelato in Italy, do not go into the shops where the gelato is brightly colored. It is full of artificial additives. Look for gelato that is lighter in color.
The next morning, we were happy to get up extra early just to explore before lots of other people were around. It was lovely to see the city quieter and capture some great photos like all these gondolas lined up.
Note, the breakfast buffet a this hotel was the only one on our entire trip staying
in 5 hotels that was not very good!
We were happy to hear from our hotel receptionist that a boat ride over to the island of Murano where they blow the beautiful glass was complementary, so we booked a trip over there.
It was up bright and early the next morning to go to the airport. Another tip is you want to definitely travel light when heading to Venice. If you have other suitcases along with you, I would highly suggest renting a locker, which was only five dollars a day at the airport, And keeping your bigger suitcases there. We combined our clothes into one little carry-on and it was so much easy to maneuver around and take a small suitcase on the boats.
Venice is one of those places I don’t know if we’ll get back to you, but I’m sure I am glad we got to see it in our lifetime! Highly recommended! The pic below is my favorite that Mr. Nine took and captures the magic of the city at night perfectly! Ciao!
Linking up with Between Naps on the Porch // Thursday Fashion Files // I Do deClaire // Momfessionals // Hello Monday
xoxo
