#HurnEuroVacay -- Day 13 - Venice

We woke up the next morning and walked to the train station to catch our train to Venice. Of course, I fell asleep and woke up in Venice two hours later. The main train station in Venice is right on the island within walking distance to most sights and hotels. However, it is near impossible to navigate Venice. And by near impossible, I mean absolutely impossible. I had printed walking directions from the train station to the B&B that were provided to us through the host. It was supposed to take us 19 minutes to get there. Instead, we wandered around Venice, probably walking in circles, for over an hour. Over an hour with our backpacks on. And it was HOT.

The roads (there are no cars, so I guess they aren’t really roads) twist and turn and wind through the city. It is impossible to pick a road that you think is going in the right direction because that road may just curve right back around and end up heading the opposite way that you actually wanted to go. We thought that our strategy would be to walk along the Grand Canal – well, you can’t. There isn’t a road that just runs along the canal. There may be a road for a little while, but it will just randomly end in stairs down to the water.

All that to say, if you can – TAKE THE VAPORETTO!! The vaporetto is the water equivalent to a bus/subway route. There was a vaporetto stop 100 yards from our B&B, and we most definitely should have taken the vaporetto straight from the train station to our B&B instead of wandering around the city for an hour.

When we FINALLY made it to our B&B, no one was there. Thankfully, some other B&B guests walked up right after and let us in. They were actually friends with the host, so they called him to let him know that we arrived. This B&B was definitely the worst room of our whole trip. The bedroom was okay, and there was actually AC which was so nice. But, the bathroom was down the hall and not clean. The shower was gross, with terrible water pressure, and sketchy hot water.

Nevertheless, Venice is absolutely beautiful! I had heard that the city was dirty and smelled bad because of the water, but this could not be farther from the truth. The water was clean and pretty, and the city was spectacular. We split a pizza for lunch at a nearby restaurant, and then we rode the vaporetto over to St. Mark’s Square. 

St. Mark's Square was completely flooded. People were walking around with no shoes on and their pants rolled up splashing through the water. I was not about that. There were also raised platform sidewalks through the square – so all these thousands of people were trying to walk around the square on these five feet wide raised sidewalks.

All the people walking on the raised sidewalks.

We finally made our way to St. Mark’s Basilica. The same dress code as the other churches was enforced here, but thankfully I was dressed appropriately. There were no pictures allowed inside, but the church is covered in beautiful mosaics.

After we saw the church, we decided to get out of that part of town. There were way too many people in one area trying to walk around on tiny sidewalks. Too crowded for us. We took the vaporetto back to our hotel and started to wander around the city. We walked and took in the sites and did a little more souvenir shopping.

The Grand Canal

These calendars were sold everywhere through Italy. It is a calendar of hot Roman priests. Hilarious.

After a little nap at the hotel that afternoon, we went out for dinner at a restaurant along the Grand Canal. 

#HurnEuroVacay -- Days 11 &12 - Florence

Because of the inconsistency of Italian train schedules, we had to wake up super early to catch the train to La Spezia. Our train to Florence left La Spezia at 8:17 am, and we needed to catch an early enough train out of Vernazza to make it La Spezia on time. The only good news about our early wake up time is that we opened the door and saw this amazing sunrise view.

Sorry if we look a little tired. It was like 6 am.

After a few train switches, we finally made it to Florence around 10:30 am. Florence is more of a small town, and the only public transportation option was the bus system. The walk to our apartment was only about 20 minutes, so we set off with our backpacks for the 20 minute walk. Thankfully, my husband has a better sense of direction than me, and he led us straight to the apartment with the help of my pre-printed Google Maps walking directions.

We got to the apartment, and no one was there. I thought that I remembered reading on Air Bnb that our host owned a gelato shop close to the apartment. We decided to walk around and see if we could find her shop. This was not a good idea. There were a ton of gelato shops, and no one recognized the name of our host. We decided to walk back to the apartment and just wait. So, our 20 minute walk with backpacks turned into a 45 minute walk with backpacks. Backpacks are heavy.

Right at noon, our host’s brother arrived at the apartment to let us in. He was very helpful and everything he said was hilarious with his broken English. After changing clothes and getting ready for the day, we set out to find something to eat. Jeff and I were walking down a small street when Jeff grabbed my arm and pulled me back saying, “That’s Aziz! That’s Aziz!” Sure enough, we were walking down the street next to Aziz Ansari – everyone’s favorite Pawnee business mogul – Tom Haverford.

Aziz and I definitely made eye contact, and he knew that I knew who he was. Unfortunately, we were not able to get a picture with him, as he and his lady friend turned around to walk the other way. We tried to find them so that we could get a picture, but they were probably hiding from us since we were following them…. Creepers.

For lunch, Jeff and I decided to split a seafood pizza. Unsurprisingly, Jeff loved it. He ate all the tiny octopus(es)/octopi/whatever and the crab, shrimp, squid, etc. Also unsurprisingly, I absolutely hated it. The combination of the fishy smell and texture with the pizza was disgusting. So Jeff ate the whole pizza while I starved for the rest of the day.

We walked to the Duomo (word for Italian cathedral church), and of course started our Rick Steves walking tour of Florence. He told us about the Duomo, bell tower, and baptistery. Unfortunately the baptistery was under construction, so we didn’t get any good pictures. We went inside the Duomo, which was a little disappointing. (Note: the no exposed shoulders and no shorts dress code applies at this church as well.) After visiting Notre Dame, Westminster Abbey, and St. Peter’s Basilica, the Duomo is a little small and bare.

Bronze doors on the Baptistery of Saint John

Inside the Duomo (a little bare...)

Inside the dome

Piazza della Repubblica - with its cute little carousel

We had afternoon appointments at the Galleria dell’Accademia – the museum that houses Michelangelo’s David. I read that the David was impressive, even to people with high expectations – so I was expecting a lot. It did not disappoint. When you enter the main hall of the museum, the David stands at the very end of the hall under an arch – it is huge and towers above all the people and other art in the museum.

The Rick Steves audio guide for the museum was fantastic and taught us all about Michelangelo and his other works in the museum. Rick Steves is the best, y’all.

One of Michelangelo's Prisoners

After our visit to the museum, we walked back to Duomo to continue the rest of the Rick Steves walking tour. We stopped and ate dinner in the Piazza della Signoria – the large square across from the Palazzo Vecchio. This building was once the town hall of Florence and a palace for the Medici family. After dinner, we decided to climb the large tower to get an aerial view of Florence and the Duomo.

View of the Duomo from the Palazzo Vecchio tower

Replica of David that stands where the original once stood in the Piazza della Signoria

Outdoor museum area that probably has a fancy name that I don't remember.

Perseus with the Head of Medusa

Fountain of Neptune

While finishing the walking tour, we ended up at the Ponte Vecchio – a historic bridge across the Arno River with lots of shops. There was a band setting up on the bridge about to play a set. We waited for them to start playing and made a joke that it would be funny if they played Mumford and Sons music or bluegrass. When they introduced themselves they said, “We are just some Italian musicians who love Mississippi bluegrass music.” Excuse me? Then they played a bunch of bluegrass music. Weird.

Piazza della Repubblica at night

Here are my thoughts on Florence: most people I talked to and most blogs I read spoke very highly of Florence. Everyone said they loved Florence, and they wished they would have spent more time there. Now, maybe this made my expectations too high. But anyways, on our second day in Florence we didn’t have anything planned. We slept in really late. We walked over to the San Lorenzo market and decided to spend the day doing some souvenir shopping. We walked through booth after booth after booth all selling the same purses, bags, and wallets. We knocked out most of our gift shopping and had lunch at the market.

Lunch at the San Lorenzo market

Since we had a slow day, we had to find the pizza place from Jersey Shore.

We went back to the apartment with the intentions of putting our shopping bags up and ended up taking an unintentional nap (even though we had slept really late – oh well.) We woke up and decided to try a typical Italian dinner – pasta course, meat course, dessert. We had pasta with truffles and chicken marinated in balsamic vinaigrette – everything was delicious!