Venice, Italy

After our exciting day and a half in Innsbruck, we hopped on a train to Venice.  We first dropped our bags off at a really cute, inexpensive bed and breakfast type place we were staying that is on the mainland (Mestre), and then we took a quick 10 minute train to the island of Venice.  The site was stunning...canals for streets, intricate buildings floating right on the water...unlike anything I have ever seen!!  

We had dinner at an overpriced, touristy restaurant right along the Grand Canal, then headed back to our room for the evening.  We started early the next day- took the train to Venice, took a boat (which they packed us all on like sardines!) over to San Marco's (St. Mark's) Square.  The buildings there were fabulous!  We went in St. Mark's Basilica, where we saw the tomb of Mark himself...I almost couldn't get in because a sign out front said you couldn't enter unless your knees and shoulders were covered, and of course I was wearing shorts and a tank top.  Luckily, Dad gave me his shirt to put on (he just wore his t-shirt underneath) and since it was so long on me, I literally sagged my shorts as far down as I could...and they let me in!  

We also saw Doge's Palace, which was incredible too...intricate 24 carat gold-guilded ceilings, paintings, a dungeon...Ben sneaked a few pictures of the dungeon, but no pictures were allowed anywhere else.  Out in the square, Dad and Ben both fed the pigeons, but I am scared of birds being on me like that and I wouldn't do it!  

We spent a long time just wandering around, through the tiny streets between the buildings, completely lined with tourist shops.  We then took a nice boat tour down the Grand Canal and then through the "back streets" of Venice to see life of the real Venetians.  This was my favorite part of the day- it was a small boat with about 10 of us on it- we got to sit and enjoy the ride while the tour guide told us about all the buildings we passed, and we each got a free glass of Bellini (a peach-flavored wine made in that area) to sip on.  After the tour, we had a delicious (and expensive!) pasta dinner, then headed back to the train station to wander around for what we thought was another couple hours.  Well, we realized all of a sudden that the overnight train we thought we were catching at 11:30 actually left from a different town, and we had to catch a train to that other town at 8!  The moment we realized this, it was already after 8, so we missed our train.  We ended up staying at a Best Western right there by the train station and taking a train in the morning.  That cut into our time in Switzerland (a post on that to follow!), but it turned out to be worth it we thought, given that we got the chance to sleep in a hotel room and get showers after a long day of walking around in the heat all day in Venice.  Overall, Venice was something you can't imagine unless you've been there, and it was spectacular to see- but the tourists were thick, the people were pushy, and people selling knock-0ff purses hassled you at every corner...I think one time in Venice was enough for me!  Be sure to check out our Venice, Italy gallery for more pictures and to see the bigger version of the thumbnail pictures on here!