As predicted, our sweet Andrea and his wife were waiting at the bottom of the staircase when I came down with our luggage. They were so kind, hugs and many thank yous later, Mom and I and our somewhat lighter luggage walked away from our favorite location so far. (Also as predicted, I in no way shape or form got up when my alarm went off at 7am to go run.. just so we’re all clear there..).
We took our time walking towards the sandwich shop, since our train didn’t leave until 12:20 and it was just hardly 10am. When we got there, we realized they don’t open until 11:30.. soo, we carried on, looking for a nice spot to have some breakfast. When we came across a restaurant in piazza that had the carousel, we decided to stay. As a plus, right by the restaurant was a taxi stand!
We sat on the covered patio and ordered our coffee. Mom was thrilled when they brought the pitcher thing so she could have instant refills. We then got super giddy, because they actually had pancakes! Oh the little things in life! We each ordered pancakes with eggs and bacon. When it came out, one pancake was covered with cheese. Mom moved her cheese onto her eggs, and I just ate mine how it came-which was actually pretty tasty! You really can put cheese on anything 🙂
We relaxed, ate, sipped, and people watched.. and around 11:40 we paid our bill and walked to the taxi stand. To my utter shock, a man drove up almost immediately, like our luggage wheels hasn’t even fully stopped yet! Within 10 minutes we were already at the train station, taxi fair paid, and breathing a sigh of relief that we had time to navigate the train station. Thankfully, the Florence train station is relatively small compared to some of the ones we’ve been in, so it was quite easy to locate our train number and wait for our platform number to appear.
We took the 2 hour and 15 minute train to Venice. As we got close we started to go over water to get to the island.. there’s something about Venice that just feels tropical-maybe it’s the humidity.. but mom and I got totally giddy like tweens getting to meet a pop star. We got off the train and started to attempt our navigation skills to the water buses-called a vaporatto. I followed my screen shot of the directions from when I had WiFi (at this point, AT&T can just have all my money, it’s annoying to not have service lol).
We get approached by tons of official looking men in their safety jackets with “Water Taxi” and whatnot on it, and after several minutes of ignoring, one guy asks which hotel and says, “ok, €20 and we go by water taxi. I thought that was a fair price to drive us 30 minutes down a canal without having to shove onto a crowded water bus..
Y’all. We got GOT. That little man carried our stuff less than 50 feet to the damn water bus terminal! Hahaha I’m still a little salty about it, honestly. BUT he did give us 2 24 hour tickets to actually get on the water bus, showed us how to validate it and which direction to go.. and I found out once we checked into our hotel that those water bus tickets are €10 each-so technically we just paid him for the tickets.. maybe I should have given him a tip after all. Whoops!
Anyway, we navigated tiny corridor like roads to find our hotel, and there it was, in all its glory! Absolutely beautiful! Inside our room was the tiny space we’ve been expecting of Europe, so we weren’t surprised, and they did accommodate our request for 2 twins instead of one full bed. I’d call it a success! We quickly dropped our luggage and figured no out how to turn the thermostat down from the “Satan’s Undercarriage” setting, and went out to find food and explore.
We hardly walked a tenth of a mile when we came to a pizzeria with outside seating. We got drinks and pizza, the man talked us into each getting our own-we definitely could have shared (even if i did eat all of mine anyway.. yikes). It started to rain and we quickly moved under an awning. Next to us sat a couple from Canada. The wife and I started chatting, thanks wine, and she’s a recently retired RN in Montreal. We had lots in common to talk about while mom and her husband’s eyes seemed to gloss over.
We paid and headed on our way to walk to St. Mark’s Square. It was roughly 1/2 mile away but we zigged and zagged and bobbed and weaved through the canals and hoards of people, up and over bridge after bridge.. we took so many pictures! I’ve never seen a city of canals quite like this, and trust me, pictures just do not do it justice at all. It was just so beautiful, even with all the people in every crevice. Maybe it’s even more special because there are no cars or vespas or scooters.. everyone has to walk or get on a boat or gondola.
The square was lovely and had more space to spread out some. The main church was also made from marble, pink and white, and I am 100% going to crochet a blanket with that pattern. I’m in love with it! The details the people of the 1200-1300 period just blow me away-and to know they didn’t have our high tech machinery.. just.. HOW? How did they create these masterpieces? And how do the Venetian people just live here and see these works of art every day walking to work and not have their breath taken away? It’s beyond amazing. Truly.
Anyway, we walked around until well after 7pm. It was a good thing it was so lovely because it was damn sure hot and humid as hell. Coming from Georgia, we’re used to that-sure-but we’re also used to air conditioning.. like I kinda think if mom and I attempted to set up an air conditioner to our preferred liking, we’d cause a power grid outage across the whole city. Hahaha
We were tired from the heat and our room was only feeling slightly cooler than it was when we left it, so we popped into our bathing suits and made our way to the pool. It’s a little awkward down there. The pool is situated in the middle of a courtyard with just enough room for a few tables and chairs around it.. you walk through the bar area to get to it along with a restaurant style sitting area outside, so we swam while other people sipped their cocktails and snacked on chips.
The water was more like a jacuzzi, and the pool even had jets and a waterfall you could turn on. At first I was afraid that it wouldn’t help cool us down and wouldn’t feel refreshing, but it did both of those things just perfectly. We swam, we let the jets massage our backs, we ignored the stares from the patrons having their pre dinner snacks.
Once dried off, we went inside to change. I put on running clothes, mom put on normal clothes, and we walked back down to the same area where we had pizza earlier. Mom got a seat at a table and I set off for my mile run. It was awkward and I didn’t really have a good lay of the land.. and there were tons of people, so I ran away from where it was crowded, and went down the tiny alleyways instead.. when I found a longish stretch of walkway I just made loops for what felt like forever. Since it was feeling pretty good, I decided to do 2 miles instead of one..I know it sounds silly, but if I hit 50 miles for the month I get “points” on my garmin app, and I’m a bit obsessed with it.. so I’ve decided to attempt to hit that goal as well making sure I at the very minimum at LEAST get the 1 mile a day to keep the run streak alive.
I choked on a few gnats and ran past several restaurants, feeling a little guilty because who wants to see a sweaty weirdo run past their table when eating a fancy Venetian dinner. Sorry, folks. Gotta do what i gotta do! Lol
Now, I’m showered and in bed in this not so cool (temperature wise) room. Mom is snoozing in her twin bed that’s super close to mine, and now that I have this written out, I’m going to try like hell to fall asleep. I don’t know how lucky I’m going to be though. Tomorrow we have a 10 am tour start to see Murano and Burano, 2 of the many islands in the lagoon Venice is situated in. I’m pretty excited about it! Goodnight, y’all!