Eurotrip 2011 – Venice

Rome > Siena > Florence > Venice > Munich > Brussels > Amsterdam

Still 20 March. We hop the train at Florence for Venice. On board the train, there was a little drama – a woman behind us swore up and down, over and over and OVER again that she had paid for her first class ticket, but didn’t get a receipt from the conductor. She spoke broken English (she looked to be from asia, though I wasn’t sure exactly where) and got very upset with the other conductors (the one she paid had gotten off at a prior station). The police were called aboard, twice, and we could not get off that train fast enough to get away from the constant whining coming from her seat.Anyway, we hop on the vaporetto (Venetian water-bus) that takes about an hour to get to our stop at Santa Maria della Salute and just a short walk from there, we find our hotel, Hotel alla Salute da Cici. They had a pretty spectacular deal online for a great room with canal view, toilet/shower, and a bottle of wine so we went for that. The view was worth it (photo at right). Room was a little smaller than our last three, but it was just fine. Dinner at the restaurant next door was included with the hotel price, and it was okay, but nothing to write home about. We were pretty tired, so it didn’t matter all that much anyway.

March 21. Breakfast was at the hotel and there was a fantastic selection of food laid out. We left our bags, PacSafed again, at the hotel in the bag area and headed out to Piazza San Marco. Sadly, Venice was nearly completely under construction while we were there – everything was scaffolded and covered in canvas painted/printed to look like the building it covered. The really disappointing part was the Bridge of Sighs which was nearly entirely encased in advertising by the folks who were sponsoring the restoration. I understand the importance of donors and restoring/maintaining historic landmarks, but it was really disgusting – there’s a photo in the flickr set. There are still plenty of pigeons around though (photo at right), even if there were less than I remember from years ago.

We hopped on the Vaporetto and went to Murano, the island of the famous Venetian glass. We oogled the chandeliers, and Doug even picked up a small glass faucet dripping out a fish sculpture that he’d been eyeballing at every shop. It’s really cute and we need to find a neat place for it at home (still!). We also hit up Burano, the painted island of lace, and wandered around the beautifully colored homes (photo at right) for a while. I had been feeling ill all day (weird stomach/gut pains?) and didn’t have my advil on me, so we were kinda taking it easy.

On the Vaporetto back to the hotel, we get to watch a gorgeous sunset over the water (photo at right). While we probably spent more time on the vaporetti than actually sight seeing, it’s a good way to get an overview of Venice without setting foot on land. Anyway, we grabbed our bags at the hotel and prepared for the night train to Munich!