venice, italy

Venice was AMAZING. I think if you could only ever go to one city in Europe, it should be Venice. It felt like we were in a completely different world! As soon as we stepped out of the train station we were walking along the Grand Canal. I'll admit we had both been feeling a little lazy as of late, but Venice kind of kicked us in the butt and gave us a new burst of energy. We felt really excited and giddy to be there. We dropped our stuff at our hotel and got going again right away, getting lost in the huge maze of narrow streets, crossing little bridges left right and center and wandering around in amazement. We got some food and continued wandering around until we came across St. Mark's Square, pretty much the center of the town. You can't really get lost in Venice though, because it's an island and eventually you'll find your way! It's really easy to get disoriented though, there are literally hundreds of different bridges and canals.

We suddenly stumbled upon St. Mark's Square and that's when our jaws really dropped. It was gorgeous, and right on the water! The sun was just setting, which made it even more awesome. There must have been a million pigeons in that square, and there were little stands where you could by a whole bag of corn feed for only 1 Euro! (take that, guy in Milan! pfft). These pigeons were crazy and would attack you as soon as they saw the little white bag that the feed came in. The lady who was selling the feed even had a fly swatter to shoo the birds away, hahah. We had so much fun playing with the pigeons, I swear we were there for well over an hour...I have a couple videos of us with them, one where it's still light, and another when its already gotten dark, hehe. They would swarm you, landing anywhere they could and fighting each other off even. It was a blast! We decided to do our laundry on our last night in Venice in case we got crapped on at all. It took us quite a while to make it back to our hotel that night cause we kinda got lost. (crossed the Grand Canal when we shouldn't have!) We stopped into another hotel and got directions so it was all ok! There were so many more guys selling black-market designer purses in Venice as well. They would set all their things out on bedsheets on the street and relentlessly hound you as you walked by. At the sight of a cop though, they would be packed up and off and running in the blink of an eye. It was pretty funny to see. One minute they would be there and the next they would be gone. Since we talked to that guy in Milan we were more tolerant of their harassing, and even stopped to talk and joke around with them. It was pretty funny.

The next day we bought a vaporetto pass (water bus!) and went for a ride down the Grand Canal from the train station to St. Mark's Square. The actual gondola rides are really expensive, like 100 Euros, so we settled for the vaporetto! It was almost as good and we got a nice tour of the place. The do everything on the water! Police boats, post office boats, delivery boats, it was really cool! The Grand Canal was like a freeway. We saw most of the sights that day, including going inside St. Mark's and Doge's Palace. We did a lot of strolling around and gelato eating as well. We found a really cheap gelato place by the Rialto Bridge. Time really flew by just walking all around. And I can't forget about the pigeons! We played with them some more as well..including throwing pigeon feed in front of the feet of unsuspecting tourists walking through the sqaure and watching the chaos unfold, muhahaha.

Our vaporetto pass was good for 24 hours so we took it again in the morning to the Accademia Museum. We saw all the paintings there and then crossed the Accademia bridge and continued walking all about. We also tried taking the boat over to the next little island to climb the bell tower, but the church was closed! We were bummed, but heading back to the main town and got some gelato to feel better. hahaha.. We also found some really great chinese food for cheap and had a little feast for dinner. Since it was our last night in Venice and we wouldn't be playing with the pigeons anymore, we did our laundry and made it a bit of an early night.