Trip to Venice

We grabbed a quick flight from Istanbul (Part 1 & Part 2) to Venice then hopped a vaporetto- water taxi, to into the actually island. The path to Venice was lined in the water by wood posts which was kind of neat, a water road. We wandered through a crowded San Marco into the Chanel/Gucci shopping district where we found a very small stone sign in the ground which took us down and alley and to our hotel. We knew there was a terrace so of course the first thing we did was run up and check out the view, mostly pretty red tiled roofs but we could also see the campanile of San Marco which was neat.

 Then we started wandering through the tiny streets and over all the bridges, you can't help but get totally lost here. every once in awhile we'd open up to a plazza in which we then always took deeper breaths. We headed to the Peggy Guggenheim museum which was filled with truly amazing artists like Degas, Calder sculptures, Mondrian. The museum is in what was her house along the Grand Canal and the artwork was her personal collection! It was fun to talk about them and meander through it all.

 our first gelato of Italy

On our way back we bought a lock to write our names on and locked it to a bridge filled with them and then tossed our key into the Grand Canal. Cheesy and romantic, but also kinda fun.

We ate pizza, gelato and drank a carafe of wine then walked to the Rialto Bridge where we ventured through shops and stopped to buy Italian cookies.

 

Rialto Bridge

We heard Venice's food wasn't amazing but was expensive so we found a small piazza filled with little cheap restaurants and mostly only Italians that didn't speak any English and ate sandwiches, caprese, and drank negronis.

And because we love these places at night we let ourselves get lost and eventually ended up back in a mostly empty St. Mark's Square where one restaurant was still open and a string quartet was playing. We danced and fake waltzed and headed home.

We started off Venice day 2 by going into the St. Peter's Basilica. It was really impressive inside. There were gold tiles mosaiced everywhere with mosaics of saints and scenes mixed in.

below is one of Josh's sneakily taken photos of it

Next we lounged at a cafe drinking cappuccinos and eating brioche stuffed with nutella and cannolis. We meandered around getting lost most of the afternoon finding a few markets and eating pistachio gelato (the only flavor we got most of the time)

 

Then we took a vaporetto over to Gorgio Maggiore on another small island. We took the very tiny elevator to the top of the bellfry which gave a really stunning panoramic view of Venice. I'm glad we persevered because first we took the vaporetto the wrong direction and had to walk back 20 minutes to the correct one, frustrating, but worth a second try.

That night we took an infamous gondala ride. We brought a bottle of red wine, wrapped the blanket around us and floated through the water. We loved doing it at night because we were mostly alone on the water and only small lights twinkled as he steered us into smaller waterways and under tiny bridges. As touristy as it is to take a gondola ride we are so glad we did. It was nothing but magical.

We ended the night at a small dive bar with a bunch of rowdy Italians watching soccer while we sipped negronis and ate doner pitas.

Istanbul and Venice were close for our favorite stops. Venice truly felt magical and special. It was (mostly) fun to never know where a road or random alley would lead you.