For months we'd been anticipating the arrival of our friends Kiersten and Travis from Nebraska. We'd tossed around about a million ideas for their 10 day trip and finally came up with a realistic (from an American traveler’s standpoint) itinerary that would hash out some pretty major sights for them in a short period of time.
After a quick introduction to Deutschland including Flammkuchen, Spätzle and Weißbier we jumped on a cheap Ryan Air flight to Venice (all within 24 hours of their landing :)! It's a quick 1.5 hour trip to the Treviso Airport which is an easy bus ride into Venice with first stop in the mainland city, Mestre where we were staying. Hotel Regit was conveniently located near the train station for about a 10 minute journey into Venice. The weather was beautiful and we were excited to go "get lost" in the crooked little streets and alleyways.
Pulling into the Santa Lucia train station we noticed about 5 cruise ships in port. Just a few geographic and demographic facts: Venice is a lagoon made up of 118 small islands of which about 60,000 people populate. On average there are about 50,000 tourists a day in Venice which, mind you is so relatively small that you can walk from one end to the other in roughly an hour. Needless to say, we were about to encounter a lot of people! C'est la vie! We were in good company and we really had no agenda but to soak up the sun and culture...and wine...and gelato...and murano glass...
We stopped for a late lunch at a sidewalk restaurant on the Lista di Spagna, had some house wine and Kiersten tried the "American" pizza complete with french fries on top! Even though we had Rick with us as guidance, we really did get a little lost in the streets of Venice, not to worry though, we were going to run into water :) but we did find our way to a water taxi - the vaporetti - along the Grand Canal that took us directly to San Marco.
It's so unbelievable that something as large as St. Marks' Basilica, The Piazza, and Doge's Palace can be on such a small island! The overwhelming architecture of different time periods here leaves you a little puzzled while at the same time creates a sense of harmonious balance. It's all beautiful! We spent some time in The Piazza, reading about all of the different buildings, walking around the numerous shops and cafes that line the square and of course dodging pigeons every step of the way. We didn't have time to venture into the Palace or Basilica but were definitely impressed with all that we saw from the outside.
Dave and I were not alone in our want to find the HRC, Kiersten is a collector so we had to go! Plus it is the smallest Hard Rock weighing in at only 360 sq. meters! We slowly made our way back to towards the train station where we were summoned up to a rooftop Wine Bar, ok. Kiersten and I had the best Muscato we've ever had and then I had the worst - Aperol is an Italian aperitif and I had to try it to see what it was all about. Disgusting, now I know not to drink anything orange in a wine glass- ever. It was a fun long day in Venice though. We took the standing room only bus back to Mestre that night.
After breakfast at the hotel, we checked out and headed back into Venice for the entire day since our flight didn't leave till 10:00 that night. We attempted to store our bags at the train station but unlike all others we'd been to there are no self-serve lockers. There was a mile long line to check your bag in and we didn't want to waste that time. We lugged them around all day - take backpacks! Or be a good sport like Travis and wheel the bag :)
We hopped right on a Vaporetto to take us to Murano. The €20, 24hr travel ticket that we bought the day before was perfect for our time there. If you are going to take 3 or more Vaporetto trips it's worth it since one trip is a whopping €7. We really loved Murano! It was smaller, more quaint and of course had beautiful museums and glass filled shops around every corner. We watched a glass maker presentation where he whipped up a glass horse in a matter of minutes, it was pretty impressive and of course you could buy the horses in the adjoining show room :)
It was another beautiful day as we wandered through the less crowded Murano. Before heading back to Venice we settled at a lovely outdoor cafe for a wine and cheese snack since that was a much easier souvenir to enjoy than the massive, colorful, glass chandeliers that I really wanted. Back in Venice we wandered for a bit longer until we found a nice sidewalk table to drop off the the boys and bags while K and I ventured out for a little shopping. We couldn't possibly leave without buying a Venetian mask, or glass or the perfect Christmas ornament. I found all three, yippee!
Just a day and a half was good in Venice for us. We all agreed that it was a nice trip but not really a place that we'd go back to. We had fun but it was time to get the bus back to Treviso for our late flight home. Dave had to leave on a business trip on Sunday and the 3 of us were off to Heidelberg, then Munich and Oktoberfest, then a Rhine River cruise, then Bad Dürkheim! A fun-filled vacation for the Richards had just begun in Venice!
It's so unbelievable that something as large as St. Marks' Basilica, The Piazza, and Doge's Palace can be on such a small island! The overwhelming architecture of different time periods here leaves you a little puzzled while at the same time creates a sense of harmonious balance. It's all beautiful! We spent some time in The Piazza, reading about all of the different buildings, walking around the numerous shops and cafes that line the square and of course dodging pigeons every step of the way. We didn't have time to venture into the Palace or Basilica but were definitely impressed with all that we saw from the outside.
Dave and I were not alone in our want to find the HRC, Kiersten is a collector so we had to go! Plus it is the smallest Hard Rock weighing in at only 360 sq. meters! We slowly made our way back to towards the train station where we were summoned up to a rooftop Wine Bar, ok. Kiersten and I had the best Muscato we've ever had and then I had the worst - Aperol is an Italian aperitif and I had to try it to see what it was all about. Disgusting, now I know not to drink anything orange in a wine glass- ever. It was a fun long day in Venice though. We took the standing room only bus back to Mestre that night.
After breakfast at the hotel, we checked out and headed back into Venice for the entire day since our flight didn't leave till 10:00 that night. We attempted to store our bags at the train station but unlike all others we'd been to there are no self-serve lockers. There was a mile long line to check your bag in and we didn't want to waste that time. We lugged them around all day - take backpacks! Or be a good sport like Travis and wheel the bag :)
We hopped right on a Vaporetto to take us to Murano. The €20, 24hr travel ticket that we bought the day before was perfect for our time there. If you are going to take 3 or more Vaporetto trips it's worth it since one trip is a whopping €7. We really loved Murano! It was smaller, more quaint and of course had beautiful museums and glass filled shops around every corner. We watched a glass maker presentation where he whipped up a glass horse in a matter of minutes, it was pretty impressive and of course you could buy the horses in the adjoining show room :)
It was another beautiful day as we wandered through the less crowded Murano. Before heading back to Venice we settled at a lovely outdoor cafe for a wine and cheese snack since that was a much easier souvenir to enjoy than the massive, colorful, glass chandeliers that I really wanted. Back in Venice we wandered for a bit longer until we found a nice sidewalk table to drop off the the boys and bags while K and I ventured out for a little shopping. We couldn't possibly leave without buying a Venetian mask, or glass or the perfect Christmas ornament. I found all three, yippee!
Just a day and a half was good in Venice for us. We all agreed that it was a nice trip but not really a place that we'd go back to. We had fun but it was time to get the bus back to Treviso for our late flight home. Dave had to leave on a business trip on Sunday and the 3 of us were off to Heidelberg, then Munich and Oktoberfest, then a Rhine River cruise, then Bad Dürkheim! A fun-filled vacation for the Richards had just begun in Venice!
The Pictures of Venice and Murano can tell you more of our story in greater detail!
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