Italy - Venice

Venice, Italy

To celebrate our 10th anniversary Matt and I went on a fabulous trip to Italy.  While we traveled quite extensively in the first 6 years of our marriage (Australia, Brazil, France/Belgium/Holland, Thailand, Greece - and I snuck in a school trip to Turkey & Dubai, too!), understandably there was an abrupt hiatus when kids entered the picture.  So this was our first big trip since before Luke was born 4.5 years ago (sort of like dog years, to me it felt like it had been forever since our last international trip).  The whole trip, in a word, was AWESOME!!!!   We can't thank Donna and Emil enough for watching the kids for us for over a week!  They are quite the active little monkeys, we know, so we appreciate how much work it is to take care of them for so long.  We were a little nervous leaving the kids for so long, but they did great, due in part to how comfortable they feel with Grandma and Grandpa and being in their regular schedule at home with Isolene during the week.  It really allowed us to enjoy our trip knowing they were happy and well taken care of.  Donna and Emil are such wonderful, hands-on, caring and generous parents and grandparents - I don't know what we'd do without them!  Thank you!!  

Our week in Italy was a whirlwind, with 4 destinations over 8 days/nights.  We visited Venice, Florence, Cinque Terre and Rome and while it was a busy week, we wouldn't have missed out on any part of it! To make my documentation easier, I'm doing it in chunks, with one post for each city.  I'm not good at weaning down my photos, so there are a ton!  I just want to say that I started with over 800, so this is quite a pared down version of them.  The weather was perfect throughout the entire trip, in the 70's and 80's and we had a great combination of active type things, cultural things, and some (not a lot, admittedly) of downtime.  We have been asked a lot which city was our favorite.  We both had highlights in each city, but if I was FORCED to I would have to say Cinque Terre was my fave, since it was unlike any other place I have ever been in my whole life and I LOOOVED it.  Matt says if he was forced to rank he would say Florence was his favorite, I'm assuming due to the amazing tour we did there where he had a chance to drive a vintage Fiat 500 around the vineyards of Tuscany.  More to come on that in the Florence post:)  This post, though, is all about VENICE!!!  Venice was my second favorite city (and would have easily been #1 if Cinque Terre hadn't been so freaking amazing).  I have been dreaming about visiting the magical city of Venice for it seems like forever, it just has been such a romantic and magical place for me in my head, and very high on my bucket list.  I am happy to say that: a) I crossed if off my bucket list, and b) it actually exceeded my expectations, it was so fabulous!  See for yourself via our photojournalism......

We splurged and took a water taxi from the airport to the island of Venice.  It was sunset and driving up to our bed & breakfast in our private speedboat up the Grand Canal was something that was absolutely unforgettable and a perfect way to kick off our trip!

This wasn't our boat, but looks like the one we were in.  I felt like we were movie stars!

Finding our B&B down the cute narrow streets of Venice.  We stayed in the Cannaregio area of Venice, which is more residential and was perfect for what we wanted.  It was off the tourist mob scene path and felt a lot more like "real" Italy.  

Our very nice room had lovely views of a little canal. 

Dinner the first night at a nearby place, the first of many delicious authentic Italian meals!  Trip Advisor was definitely my friend throughout the trip.  

Getting a feel for the town with a post-dinner walk.  Everywhere you look it is beautiful, gorgeous, amazing!

Breakfast the next morning on the little balcony over the canal.  Yummy and picturesque!

That window was our room.

Like out of my dreams!  Cappuccino on a canal in Venice, swoon!

This was the entrance to our B&B, the Alla Vite Dorata.  HIGHLY recommend this place if you're ever in the area.  Not only was it an amazing place to stay with a perfect central location, but they went above and beyond the call of duty by sending me my Kindle to Rome when I accidentally left it in the room.  

I was so excited to see the gondolas!

First pizza of the trip, and my first "Spritzer" experience.  Both delish!

St Mark's Square and the Doge's Palace

Doge's Palace

St Mark's Square

Doge's Palace

View from the palace

Doge's Palace

Highway robbery prices, but worth-it ambiance in St. Mark's Square.  The music, the white glove service, the views, it was so fun.

Stopped by this little church on the walk back to the B&B

There is supposedly a real piece of the holy cross on display here.

Rialto Bridge

The light was so beautiful on our way to dinner that night, just before sunset.

This special dinner was my highlight for Venice, everything was just perfect.  The sunset, the food, the ambiance, the company:)

We got a whole fish among other yummy things.

Post dinner romantic, nighttime gondola ride.  

Post dinner, post gondola ride treat.  

Eating breakfast while waiting for our ferry the next morning.  

We had a bit of a snafu when we attempted to rent a car in Venice to drive to Florence.  We took the ferry all the way to the airport in Venice to rent a car there only to find out we weren't able to. so then ended up taking a public bus to a train station in nearby Mestre, and then found this kind of random train company "Italo" (vs the more common "Trenitalia" company) to get a super-fast and awesome bullet train to Florence.  We ended up wasting about 3 hours at the end of the day, but hey, live and learn!  Hindsight is 20/20!

Next up, Florence!  Or should I say....Firenze!