Venice would have to be the only place in the world where my geographically challenged tendencies aren't a worry because it seems like being lost is the norm.
By the time our flight arrived we were starting to feel halfway normal, we found the bus from the airport easily and thought we were on a roll … how wrong we were! The hotel had emailed us instructions on how to get to there, but signage was random, so it wasn't much help! After a lot of hunting and walking over bridges in the heat of the day, we sat down for a rest. This time luck was on our side. We took out the iPad and it so happened that someone had their wifi open, so we quickly went onto Google Maps to hunt down some directions. It turned out we weren't that far away, so around a couple of corners, over a couple of more bridges and we found a door in the wall that turned out to be our hotel!
Our room wasn't ready, so armed with a map we went for a wander to find somewhere for lunch. We found a place just around the corner from the hotel and had some awesome pasta.
We headed back for a siesta and all rested it was time for some exploring. As we were leaving we got a 10 minute run down of what to see, lots of circles and writing on our map from the guy at reception and a promise that he'll tell us more later; we quickly worked out that he loved a chat and getting away from him was going to be an issue.
We went to the grand canal to see the regatta boats then Piazza Santa Margherita for dinner.
As we were finishing dinner there was a heap of lightning, so we started on the hunt for our hotel in the dark. We made it back before the storm started and turned in for the night with an impressive light show.
Our reservation included breakfast that was brought to our room - we had the choice of bread, yoghurt, cheese, orange juice and coffee! We ordered the bread, cheese and coffee - we got bread rolls, cheese in foil and a cappucino in a jug; interesting to say the least!
It was still raining, but that was a good thing, because it was cooler so we walked to St. Mark's square and saw the Basilica and Doge's Palace. We had lunch at a restaurant off the square and then went on a gondola ride and saw the canals, Marco Polo's house and the Bridge of Sighs.
We then caught a water bus along the Grand Canal and saw the Rialto Bridge and got back Pizzale Roma which is near our hotel. As the station was there we booked train tickets to Cinque Terre.
After a siesta we headed out to dinner and got lost once again and ended up having dinner at Campo S. Giacomo del Orio (we think) and had a good chat with a Canadian couple called Bob and Cathy.
The next day we walked to the Rialto Bridge, it was sunny and there were 100s of people out and about. Afterwards we spent most of the day lost and wandering up and down alleys and over bridges.
At one stage we found the water bus and decided to take that back to near our hotel. Great idea if we had of boarded the one going in the right direction. We ended up at the other end of the island! We thought that seeing as we were there we have a look around. There wasn't a lot there so we headed back to the water bus terminal only to find out that 15 minutes earlier a strike had started, so walking back to the hotel it was! It was still really hot, so we found the shadiest route possible. On the way we found an ATM and as we were getting our cash a pigeon decided to crap on Luke - it sums up the luck of our day perfectly :-)
We finally made it back to the hotel and had a well earned rest and then out to dinner. We played the safe card and just went around the corner. In true Venetian style dinner took two hours and there was no rhyme nor reason as to when how or when we got served!
Venice is a very interesting place and we're glad we visited. We've had many laughs over the randomness of it, but I don't think we'll put it on the re-vist list!!
Location:Venice
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