Venice->
We stayed in Venice for 3 days. It was lovely! I think I took a picture around every corner! I'm sure there are so many pictures that look similar, but looked so unique prior taking them. The town is simply amazing. I couldn't imagine living there...just so different. No cars, only water taxis, buses and gondolas/boats (which looks like majority of people own).
We did a large amount of walking...plenty of steps over all the canals. We visited the first 'ghetto'. There is a large Jewish community in Venice and this first Jewish neighborhood was the first place the term ghetto came from, which means 'outcast'. There was a huge farmers type of market, vegetables, fruit, tons of fish; all the crustaceans were alive. It was cool to see the boats hauling packages, products/supplies and trash. I got a photo of a dump boat, but for some reason cannot locate it? :O Here is a 'shipping boat' :P
Here are a few nice pics of Venice:
The last day we were in Venice we had planned on going to Murano island to visit a glass factory. Unfortunately it was pouring this day! We walked across the city to hop on a water bus, got completely drenched. Hopped on the bus, went to Murano wandered for a bit only to find that we couldn't get into any factories that day- they were closed to the tourists since the weather was so ugly. Headed back on the bus vs. any walking... wow, we were soaked!
We took the train to Florence.... Florence is beautiful. I'll update about Florence and our wine tasting excursion tomorrow... it's 1:02 am and we have to head out at 7am tomorrow... home sweet home! I miss my Jada and alone time :)
:)
On to Venice... (11/30)
We asked our hotel clerk to call us a taxi to get to the train station. The taxi never showed so we ended up waving down another taxi. Unfortunately we ended up being late to the station so had to wait for the next train (~45 min). We headed up on our 5 hr train ride to Venice around 12:30pm.
We arrived in Venice around 530, yes, already dark. We grab a water bus 72 hr pass and hop on the water bus. Ok, we had lots of luggage- there was 0 hopping in Venice! It took about 35 minutes to get to our stop. We get off the bus and begin our exciting adventure down the narrow, beautiful, unique calles. Oh my… calle (street) here, 150 ft. another calle, then a bridge over a canal, then an overhang. We followed my GPS, but still had a heck of a time finding our hotel while carrying our heavy bags up and down stairs and squeezing through narrow streets.
We finally made it to the hotel, unloaded then wandered for a restaurant. Venice seemed dead… it was only ~ 7 or so, but was dark and didn’t have much going on.
Yummy dish, yummy wine, yummy dessert.. backto hotel...
been without internet...
Last Day in Rome (Monday, 11/30)
We went to the Colosseum and Foro Roman the last day we were in Rome. It was an awfully cold and windy day (ok, I was freezing, of course Ryan was not). We chose to not do the guided tour for two reasons-> I’ll get bored and tired if I’m following and listening to one person for a couple hrs and Ryan doesn’t care for information (yea, I know- I want to know everything :P). Well, we wandered, awed and took pics. Of course we had many questions, many of which could not be answered by the few posters located throughout the Coloseum. So? We still have unanswered questions about the Coloseum and Foro Roman.
The Coloseum was pretty cool. It was interesting to see where thousands of battles were performed, blood spackled and oozed, tons of animals killed and millions of spectators cheerfully watching in delight. The stories of the human and animal fights that took place is simply amazing… As I was walking through the pillars, I imagined how insanely awesome it’d be to have the Colosseum fill up with the previous fighters and spectators and participate in the historic games. Wow!
The Foro Romans wasn’t as interesting, but was cool nonetheless. It’s cool to see ruins and picture what they were used for, how they were used and what they used to look like. Trying to imagine the whole picture in action was difficult.
We walked a crap load yet again. Rome is fairly big ( ****); however, is easy to navigate or get ‘lost’ in. We had a map and used it as a guideline; however, we quickly got to know the landmarks, our previous locations, etc. Of course we had no problem finding gelato shops or pizzerias :P.
We didn’t do much shopping while in Rome, spent the majority of time looking at monuments, churches, etc. We’ve taken loads of pictures.
Next? We head out to Venice via the train.
