Italy Vacation – Day 4: Venice – 9.12.13

After spending 3 days in Rome (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3), we took a train up to Venice. As soon as we walked out of the train terminal, we fell in love with Venice.

The train ride to Venice was about three and a half hours long but it went really quick. Especially when the view outside was so breathtaking. I got some much-needed reading done, which was of Dan Brown’s latest Robert Langdon novel Inferno. It’s the perfect book to read before an Italian vacation since the majority of the story takes places in Florence and Venice. Back to the train ride, for the most part it was smooth sailing but Kristen was a bit freaked that our bags were so far away from us. We kept checking on the bags every time the train made a stop, just so no one took the wrong bag or it got stolen. I had to tell her I feel sorry for anyone that wants to steal my bag considering how bad my used clothes smelled haha.

What helped with falling in love with Venice was the perfect weather we had. 75 degrees, not a cloud in the sky and it was just perfect. Well it felt like 80-85 in the sun but still, couldn’t have asked for more perfect weather in Venice. I was worried we would get some rain there, since the weather report was saying we were going to get rain but we lucked out. Once we got there, we got a Vaporetto (water bus) and had to go to Rialto Bridge stop. From there we got a little lost trying to find out hotel but we managed to find it without having to hurl our luggage up too many steps. Out hotel was in between Rialto Bridge and San Marco, so in a prime spot if you want to be by the sights. Some people stay away from San Marco, and I certainly don’t blame them but for this trip, the hotel was in a great spot.

The hotel room was on the 5th or 6th floor, and there was no elevator so that was a bit tough walking up at the end of the day. Thankfully the staff helped us with our bags so we didn’t have to do that. We dropped off the luggage and then explored Venice for the next 8 hours pretty much. We headed down to San Marco and saw the sights there and just every street and waterway, I wanted a photo of. It’s truly one of the best cities to take photographs in…hence the millions of people that visit there.

San Marco was extremely crowded, but once you go away from the major sights, there’s not too many people around. I treated all the tour groups that are all bunched up and taking up all the space on the streets as zombie herds. Once a herd would get near us, I was like “QUICK, THAT WAY! WALKERS!!” in my Rick Grimes voice and went the other way. That’s the best way to see the city, just get lost and wander. Don’t plan to see too many museums because the entire city is one.

At some point, we got some lunch and I had some leftover bread so I decided to feed some pigeons, even though you’re not supposed to. Kristen is afraid of pigeons so she wanted no part of it but she got some fun shots of me holding the birds and feeding them. I have to say it was definitely one of my highlights of the trip. I was goofing off and throwing the birds towards Kristen because I knew she was going to freak. There are those idiot merchants walking around in San Marco trying to sell you bird seed but make sure you don’t pay a cent! I saw them get yelled at a few times for it.

After that, we pretty much walked in a big circle from San Marco all the way back. We walked along the Grand Canal and sat down near the Rialto Bridge but far away enough from the crowds. We ended up just sitting there for an hour or so and enjoying the view. Gondolas, vaporettos, and water taxis would go sailing by and it was a beautiful sight. That ended up being “our spot” for the trip and would go there everyday and just sit there and relax. I’ll miss that spot.

We headed up to San Paolo. We saw the impressive Friar’s Church, I managed to find a new plaid cap which was kind of hard to find in Italy. I was trying to find a new fedora too but all these had were ones with the brim was flat in the front, but I don’t like that style. We walked San Marco, San Paolo, Santa Croce and then headed into Dorsoduro where a lot of the locals seemed to be. People prefer to stay in that area too since it’s away from all the tourists. It was getting to be around sunset, so we ended up watching a little bit of that near the Santa Maria Della Salute, but you can’t really see the sunset from around that area. I think you’d have to be by the train station to really see it well. Around 7pm, we got some food near our hotel and called it a night. It was a lot of wandering around, getting lost but man, was it a great day!

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Tags: Italy, Italy Vacation, Nikon D800, Rialto Bridge, San Marco, St Marks Square, The Grand Canal, travel photography, Venezia, venice