Ahhhh, my first sigh of relief as I sit down to take a look back on our tour of Italy to celebrate our ten years of marriage. We ended up flying right after the Delta computer systems crashed. It left us with a couple of headaches. 1) we had to change our flight from Atlanta to Paris ----> to Atlanta to Rome. This left us without our baggage (go figure) when we finally arrived into Venice from Rome since we started our tour in Venice. 2) This also increased our flight time and we spent 10 hours on that flight. So we went from Grand Rapids to Atlanta to Rome to Venice. Besides being completely disappointed in the fact that we were without our luggage, we had amazing views of the canals of Venice on our way to our hotel, which could make you forget just about anything.
The Canals are just beautiful. Incredibly hard to capture and incredibly hard NOT to take a picture of every single home or structure.
I thought my Mom would like to see their version of flower boxes.
We took a private boat which had to squeeze down tiny alleyway canals.
Gondolas
We checked into our hotel sans luggage and went to seek out food. To no one's surprise we found a great pizza joint!
The Bridge de Rialto. We were told this bridge is going to receive an amazing update. Apparently the person who started the company Diesel is spending 4 billion dollars to redo this bridge. Hopefully I remembered that correctly.
The water buses.
This is where the Duke of Venice once lived which happens to also be the building where they kept the prisoners.
St. Marks Basilica. St. Mark once had a dream that despite not currently living in Venice at the time, that he was to be buried there. Once Mark had died, the Venetians went to Egypt and stole Mark's body. When inside the Basilica you can see his tomb/casket.
Very skinny alleyways.
yes that bell tower in the photo below is leaning. although I do tend to take crooked pictures time to time. Venice is built on a marshland and that is why the rumor of Venice sinking is absolutely true. Its very possible if nothing was done to stop the water from overtaking the city, that Venice would sink completely in 70 years. In November every year, all the people that reside there need to wear knee high rubber boots because the town is flooded.
What tour would be complete without pointing out where George Clooney got married!?
And also where Brad and Angelina lived for 4 months.
iPhone photos start here....
pasta, pasta and more pasta!!
and lots of amazing treats & sweets
I always tell everyone that asks about what we brought home, the same thing. You could buy trinkets or Prada. You could walk in Chanel or step next door to what seemed like the market/dollar store. Not many middle of the road stores.
St Mark's Square
I ended up buying a dress after being in the same clothes for 48 hours. Not the end of the world but after you travel via train then shuttle then boat for 24 hours and then walk around the crowded streets of venice a whole day, I think a new dress was warranted. And a bottle of moscato!
amazing calamari. Most of the restuarants don't open until at least 7pm. And a lot of the Italians are on 'holiday' the month of August. So we asked a tour guide where to eat and she told us about these cute and quaint restaurants on the far side of Venice past the Jewish Ghetto (which is the first 'Geto' there ever was)
Jason bought me my first bottle of Moscato to which I replied, 'when in rome' and of course not being in Rome, it doesn't exactly work as well, and I never repeated that statement when we were actually in Rome.
There are so many more photos on my phone and camera but these are just a few highlights of Venice. We received our luggage the night before we left and I had never felt happier! This is on our train to Florence. My expressions still need some help but I was working on my selfie stick skills.
Up next: Florence !!!
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