What a month it has been! We celebrated Mahlon's birthday with a big Metallica show in Milan and last week we spent 3 days in Venice, Dex-free, for our anniversary!
We arrived around 9:30 in the morning Wednesday. It was nice and cool outside, no higher than 70. We had great weather the whole time too, no roasting like we did in Milan! We grabbed a 3 day bus/vaporetto pass and headed for the hotel. Since there are no busses, cars or even scooters allowed on the island, all the public transportation on the island is by water taxi, water bus or gondola. We took the vaporetti (water bus) everywhere. There was a vaporetto stop right by our hotel.
This is directly in front of our hotel, Ca' Dogaressa, which came highly rated on trip advisor. They set up tables out here in the canal for breakfast. Our hotel was in the Jewish Ghetto section of Venice. We saw several Orthodox Jews while we were there, top hats, side curls and everything!
Here's what our hotel looked like.
We checked in but couldn't get in our room until 2pm. So we stored our luggage at the hotel and went exploring. Mahlon and I agreed Venice reminded us of Taormina, since every street and alleyway was picture worthy. And the bridges are so beautiful!
Eeek! Gondolas! I was so geeked!
The two most frequent shops you see in Venice are Murano glass and masks! Some of them have very elaborate displays.
Mahlon spotted this right away, the market from the movie "The Tourist" with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. This is the scene where Johnny Depp jumps off the balcony onto a Carabineri.
After a couple hours of walking we decided to find a pretty piazza where we could sit down and people watch awhile. This was a pretty spot.
I had my first real venetian bellini here!
We were finally able to check into our hotel and it was so pretty inside! I loved our room!
There were wooden shades that totally blocked out the sun. We closed them up and conked out for about 3 hours!
After some much needed rest we hopped back on the vaporetto to St. Marks Square. We were morto di fame (dying of hunger) and on a mission to find the Hard Rock Cafe.
Here's our first view at the St. Marks Square vaporetto stop!
We walked by the Bridge of Sighs to get there.
Finally Hard Rock! We devoured our American food like a couple of savages.
Here's our view from inside.
After dinner we went back to St. Marks. Here's St. Mark's Cathedral with Campanile tower. Most of everything was closed, but the Campanile bell tower was still open. So we hopped on the elevator and rode to the top.
What a view! You can see the top of Doge's Palace below.
Here's the top of St. Marks.
Doge's palace again:
Here's the square!
There was a symphony orchestra set up at the end of the square!
I wanted to call my dad!
Mahlon was so happy to see an American bar.
From St. Mark's we took Rick Steve's guided walk to the Rialto Bridge and saw statues and buildings of historal significance. And of course, it ended at the beautiful Rialto.
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