Venice!

I got back on Sunday from a spectacular trip to Venice. I went with three good buddies and we had a blast. Things got off to a rocky start as our flight was delayed two hours and we couldn't find our hotel when we did actually get into the city. Venice is a maze - we got lost about everytime we tried to go anywhere, but that was part of the fun and when you don't really have a schedule for the day except finding fun things to do, getting lost can actually be great. We ended up getting to our hotel about 3 am saturday morning. We got up early the next day, ate our amazing free breakfast at the hotel and then headed downstairs to leave the hotel. We had been wondering what the awful smell in the hotel was that morning and we found out when we got to the bottom of the stairs and the ground floor of the hotel was flooded with about a foot of water. Luckily, the hotel gave us boots to wear around the city so we could still get around. Evidently, about two weeks out of the year in the winter, the high tide will flood the streets of Venice. So we were just that lucky to be there at that point in time. So we waded through the streets until we got to St. Mark's Square, the main point in Venice, but also the lowest point in Venice. The water came up past my knees and started filling my boots and it was really cold! So we found our way to the other end of the square where they had some elevated sidewalks to keep you out of the water. We ended up taking a tour of the Doge's Palace which was really cool. I learned a lot about the government of Venice. By the time we finished there, the high tide was over and the water was almost completely gone. We walked next door to St. Mark's Basilica and toured that (the picture above is from the roof of the Basilica on the side facing the sea). By the time that was done, the flooding was completely gone and we were able to enjoy the city completely. 

It also got a lot warmer and the sun came out, so we figured it was the perfect time for our Gondola ride! It was really expensive (20 Euro each for a 30 minute ride) but it was probably the highlight of the trip and definitely worth it. Our Gondolier was named Roberto and he was cool because he made his dislike of the French known, which resonated well with all of us. We went through a few small canals, then out into the grand canal up to the ponto rialto then backtracked to the start. It was really cool.

From there we wandered from pastry shop to gelato shop to pizza place to another gelato shop and just enjoying the uniqueness of the city. Here's a picture from the ponto rialto (a bridge) looking down the Grand Canal.

After walking around most of the day, we found a little place to sit an get a glass of wine and relax for a little bit. After that we went in search of a good place for dinner. We decided that we should find a nice place where we could get a meal that we would remember. We picked a place off the beaten path and we very happy with our choice. It was pricey (40 euro for my dinner) but tasted great and was a lot of fun. We split a decent bottle of white wine to go with our seafood. After a very light swordfish appetizer, bread, and some strange orange drink they gave us, I ordered the grilled Scampi. Although it looked a little intimidating, it was so good and I am so glad that I ordered it. Here's a visual for you:

After our meal we sat for about an hour and finished our wine. They even gave us some free dessert, some type of donut things they make for Carnival. However, we noticed that the streets were starting to flood - it was high tide again - so we headed out. We had gone back to the hotel to swap our boots out for our shoes earlier in the day, so we wandered the dry streets we could find and even managed to find a place making crepes on our way back. (I seriously ate so much this weekend). We went back to our hotel after that as the city pretty much shuts down at 11 and we were all tired.

On sunday we donned our boots again and went to 8 am mass at St. Mark's Basilica. Strangely, there were only about 15 people there in this pretty big church. I figure that there aren't that many tourists right now, the locals probably go to their own churches near their homes, and the flooding kept some people away. But after that we came back to the hotel, ate our breakfast and then I took a nap before we checked out. Unfortunately, we couldn't take the boots with us, and the water was still high so we went barefoot and rolled up our jeans. We waded through a foot or more of ice cold water in the lobby and out onto the streets. We were headed to the other end of the island to catch our bus to the airport and by the time we got to the rialto bridge to cross the grand canal, we put our shoes back on and found enough dry streets to get to the bus stop. After that it was an uneventful trip back.

I had a lot of fun and really enjoyed Venice, hopefully the rest of my trips will be as successful as this one!