Venice Day 1!

Today, we left Florence at 8:30 in the morning and got a train straight to Venice. On our way over, Pox discovered why Americans have such a bad reputation when it comes to tourism. We rode on a coach full of an American group of travelers. They were very load and obnoxious. Pox tried to catch up on sleep but couldn’t because of all of their chatter. The loud American’s aside, the train ride was pretty smooth and quick. Once in Venice, we bought our youth pass for the vaporetto, or boat bus, and took one straight to Lido, the island that we made our reservation on.

On Lido, we discovered how beautiful this resort destination really is, but we couldn’t enjoy it because we were so scared that we wouldn’t have a place to stay. Let us explain. We made our hotel reservation back in June and even got a confirmation number and e-mail. Once we arrived at the hotel, Villa Edera, Dania, the attendant at the reception desk told us that no reservation had ever been made for us and that the company that we made the reservation with hasn’t worked with the hotel for at least 2 years. The hotel was completely booked too, so we couldn’t get a room at all.The first thing that went through our minds was that we were in Venice, during holiday time, with no place to stay and that all the hotels were all going to be booked. Dania was very nice, she took photocopies of our reservation to complain to the company, as will we, and she even made phonecalls to get us a room for the same rate that we confirmed in June. We ended up at the Villa Cipro, which may even be a step up from our original hotel.

After settling in and even using the bidet (might be spelled wrong), we got on a vaporetto back to Piazza San Marco. Fortunately, the Venice card that came with our vaporetto pass gave us a discount on the museums, we got an amazing deal of 15 euro for both of us for 5 museums within 90 days, awesome! (Remember how much we paid at the Uffizi? 28 for both of us for one museum in one day). We decided to visit the Doge’s Palace (Il Palazzo Ducale) and boy was it worth it. It boasted enormous rooms, paintings on every single wall, sculptures, gold-leaf; everything you can imagine. What made it perfect for Cindy was the fact that we go to walk on Il Ponte dei Sospiri, the Bridge of Sighs. We got to tour the prisons, the armor rooms, all of the halls of their judicial system; the majority of the palace was accessible.

After the Palace, we wandered off to see the Rialto Bridge. It was very easy to find as there are signs that lead you straight to it. It was beautiful, but like a lot of the places that we have seen, it was marred with graffiti and trash that ignorrant people leave behind. Nothing took away from it’s architecture or grandure. Cindy thinks Venice is beautiful and “quite romantic”. If you really take the time to overlook all of the short-shorts (on men just as much or if not more than the women) and garbage, there are so many places to discover and fall in love with. We even saw a square from the movie, Pane e Tulipani, how fun! (Mary, you will love it when you come here)

After wandering, we decided to look for a place to have dinner. We had spaghetti and gnocchi al pomodoro in a quaint little restaurant which played nothing but Tom Jones songs. On its walls, celebrity portraits and one in particular of an old Italian man “copping a feel” of two women baring their goodies, allowed for a very romantic atmosphere. Yeah right! The food was good though and there was a restroom. Until tomorrow!

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Italians love doggies!