My posts on my whirlwind trip around Italy are still to come, but it’s taking forever! I saw A LOT! We traveled to Rome, Venice, Florence, Siena, Pisa, and San Gimignano. I took close to 1000 pictures, and I’m not exaggerating. So even though chronologically the trip to Rome happened before Venice, and Basel happened after all of Italy, this is the order you’re getting them. It’s okay, I promise.
After three jam-packed days of sight-seeing in Rome, we wanted something a little more low-key. Hubby was being shipped off to the Netherlands again and wouldn’t be able to join us for our trip to Florence, so I wanted to include him in at least one more trip, so we opted to spend a day in Venice.
Venice is a beautiful city that can only be traveled on foot or by boat. Maps are also useless because being able to navigate Venice means being able to find the alley-like street that has the bridge that will let you cross the canal to where you want to go. Sometimes you can find it on the map, but most of the time you can’t!
We didn’t have much of a plan for Venice, and that was okay – I think Venice is best explored by wandering! We did take a gondola ride, and while it is expensive and touristy, it’s Venice! It has to be done. We followed the advice of others and found a gondola stop away from the Grand Canal so we had NO LINE! The trip costs the same no matter where you start. Our gondolier was named Marco, and Hubby kept asking him to sing, and Marco said no, but he could be heard to hum a stanza or two as we floated along the canal.
Because were were away from the Grand Canal, it was not as congested and felt more peaceful than what I saw on the Grand Canal. Marco pointed out a few of the sights along the way which I appreciated, but what I most enjoyed was sitting quietly, taking in the view, and giving my feet a rest!
We visited on a Sunday so we had limited hours to visit the Basilica di San Marco, and when we arrived, the lines were ridiculously long, and we opted not to wait. I suppose we missed out, but after three days and numerous churches in Rome, and Tuscany still on the horizon, I was totally okay with not seeing another Church.
Venice is definitely a city that can be visited in a day without much of a plan. We were lucky that it was a warm, sunny day so it was a perfect day to wander, even if we got lost a few times. Plus, in the words of Andrea, “You have to see Venice because the next time you want to see it, it might be gone!”
