Let's Get Lost

Venice is the perfect place to walk around without a map. Even when you’re lost, everywhere you look it’s beautiful. Beyond that, it’s always easy to find your way back because it’s an island.

Today we went to St. Mark’s Square which is surrounded by several beautiful buildings on three sides, and water on the other. As with every other tourist place we’ve been, there were long lines to get into places, and I can’t get into churches wearing shorts, so we opted for the shortest line – the line for the tower.

St. Marks' Basilica

 

 

St. Mark's Square

 

We were pleasantly surprised to find an elevator inside, rather than having to walk up several flights of stairs. The view from the top is simply breathtaking. We could see the surrounding smaller islands, the road/tracks to cross back over to the mainland, and all of Venice. The buildings are all built so closely together, though, that you can’t even see any canals other than the part of the Grand Canal that ends right by the Square.

 

The tower we went up

View from the top!

Looking back at Venice

 

From there we found the Bridge of Sighs which is only accessible through a paid tour – therefore we only saw it from the outside. It’s a covered bridge that is connected to an old prison and is said to have caused the condemned to “sigh” at their last glimpse of sky and sea. 

Bridge of Sighs

 

After that we meandered back to our hotel, getting “lost” on the narrow, winding sidewalks along the beautiful canals and buildings.

City of Bridges

We have never vacationed for this long before. I was a little nervous that we would get tired of travelling and we wouldn’t enjoy each city as much. Thankfully, that hasn’t happened! We are already nearing the half-way point of our European Adventure, and are even almost done with our time in Italy. Time sure does fly when you’re having fun!

After a wonderful day in Florence, we woke up to one of the most amazing hotel breakfasts ever. They even had nutella packets. I may have taken a few extras…

We took off for the train station late morning and boarded our 2 hour bullet train to Venice. We had checked the weather and were expecting it to be raining, but we were pleasantly surprised to pull into the city with only a few clouds and no rain in sight. We quickly found our hotel, which is a quirky place and quite hilarious. The “street” to get to our hotel is probably less than 3 feet wide, with winding staircases to each floor. We even had to check in at another hotel nearby. We are on the top, fifth floor of our building and our room is the only one up here. Our hotel is an adventure in itself!

on the train from Florence to Venice

first glimpse of Venice!

This is the sidewalk down to our hotel.

 

The last staircase up to our room

Getting settled in our room didn’t take long and we quickly took off to explore Venice. With no cars out here, it’s fun to just walk the streets and meander through the narrow alleys. After getting some great pictures of the canal and several little foot bridges, we decided to ask a gondola company how much their rides were. They told us their price and we walked away thinking…wow…maybe we won’t do one after all….when we heard one of the gondoliers coming after us. He had quickly dropped the price significantly because they weren’t busy. Instead of waiting and trying to bargain again the next day, we jumped right on and thoroughly enjoyed our spur-of-the-moment splurge that is a must-do in Venice.

Ponte Rialto

 

We finished up the afternoon by wandering on our way back to our hotel to grab some things before finding some dinner and wifi. Our expected rainy day turned into a surprisingly beautiful day full of memories in our new favorite Italian city (although Florence is still way up there and we, of course, still love Rome too!). What’s not to love about Italy? Sigh…

 

We’re praising the Lord for good weather, tons of fun-filled days behind and ahead, and the promise of getting to hug and see our dear family and friends very soon, all while thinking about what lies ahead for us as we return to the States!

 

What a View

On our way from Rome to Venice we stopped in Florence for a day. Wow. It's incredibly beautiful! I think we both prefer Florence to Rome - the natural scenery, the quaint, smaller-town feel, less tourism, and still beautiful buildings. Despite some showers, we thoroughly enjoyed walking through the city. We even found a shop that sold glass dip pens! Justin was happy! :)

Our favorite picture of the trip so far! 

Florence

Ponte Vecchio

old fortress

Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli were all buried here

Florence Cathedral - very cool place

 

 

Colosseum Take 2

On our last night in Rome we went back to the Colosseum to see it with the lights on. This was our favorite Rome place and seeing it was last time was a great way to end our week there. We hung out on the plaza for about an hour waiting for the sun to set, just relaxing, chatting, and people watching.

So, What Are You In For?

As we were wandering through the vast Borghese Gardens one day, we happened upon the city's zoo! We decided to go back the next day and had a blast seeing some new animals, as well as some old favorites.

One of the smallest monkeys in the world!

This guy is roughly the size of a hamster!

 

I hate vultures, but they had TONS. These ones made the Turkey Vultures in Upland seem small.

Enjoying some shade

Lemurs!

The infamous ROUS (for those of you **aka Nikki Rudge** who don't like The Princess Bride, that means "Rodents Of Unusual Size"). His official name is a Capybara.

hungry hippos

Really cool birds!

of course, my favorite, giraffes