venice

I almost forgot about Venice! Rewind just a bit and pretend like we're still staying in Padua.

On our second day in the area, we took a train from Padua to Venice. This is the view we stumbled upon as soon as we walked out of the train station. Yup. Welcome to Italy.

We'd all downloaded Rick Steves' audio tour of the area, so we immediately got on the water taxi and let Rick educate us as we took a ride through the "streets" of Venice.

It really is an incredible city; I just wouldn't want to live there for the sake of my sanity. Imagine having to hop in your boat to go anywhere and everywhere. And it's not like there is just a Walmart down the street. You have water constantly threatening to encroach on your front steps and the cost of living there is through the roof. Rick Steves says it's a dying city, which is unfortunate, but hey! It was a great place to visit for the day.

We got off the taxi just down the street from St. Mark's Square and Basilica. The basilica was our first stop. One thing I found interesting about religious sites like this that we visited is that they monitor the clothing choices of the patrons visiting. Everyone has to have their shoulders and thighs covered, and if you don't meet the standard, they give you a shawl-type thing (made of nasty fabric that those blue booties are made out of) to wrap around your shoulders or your waist. We were way ahead of the game on that one. Go us. 

The basilica itself was incredible. I know I keep using fluffy words like that, but it's because I can't find the right, tangible words to describe how awestruck this kind of thing can make you feel. The top half of the walls and the entire ceiling are covered in mosaics--tiny tiles that are glued together (more or less) to make pictures. Google a few images of St. Mark's Basilica. Professional photos do it a lot more justice, but this is the best Colby could do under the circumstances considering he wasn't supposed to be taking pictures anyway.

We also went on the roof and got a great view of the water and St. Mark's Square, although I don't remember seeing a ton of pigeons like in the movies. Maybe it just wasn't pigeon season.

not quite sure what Kristy is doing here . . .

After taking our sweet time at the basilica, we ventured over to the building across the way that is the tallest building in Venice. At least I think that's what Rick said. I also think he told us that it had the best birds-eye view of Venice. So we went up in a tiny, stinky, humid elevator and this is what we saw, but covering all 360 degrees around us:

the basilica, where had just been

(and the shadow of the building where we were)

Next we headed down this street to do some window shopping,

and we constantly ran into scenic views such as this.

I should've taken pictures of the purses that we were looking at. Let's just say that Venice prices are completely inflated just because shop owners can do that there. Apparently lots of people just want something from Venice, so they'll dish out 120 euros for a purse in an ugly color with one big pocket and that's it. There were some decent options, but I wasn't enchanted by any of them (luckily, because I found something cheaper and better in Padua), so we moved past the purse search. After wandering for a while (how lost can you really get on an island?) we decided it was time to find a gondola because we knew we wanted to ride one before we left. It didn't take us long to find one, even though there are a limited number of gondolier licenses in Venice and each one is passed down through the family it was initially given to.

It was such a fun experience being on the water, seeing the buildings that you can't access by foot, and watching our gondolier navigate the boat around sharp corners and through crowded waterways. Crazy. 

here's all of us on our ride

 We saw him leave from his house

and arrive at the gym.

When we got off the boat, it was time to look for somewhere to eat dinner. We wound our way through the streets, found a couple options, and almost ate at one, but the smell was pretty nasty and it got even worse as they walked us to our table, so we turned around and walked out. Naturally we ended up eating at the first place we'd seen. Isn't that what always happens?

Our server started us off by giving us drinks on the house. Kristy let him know that we don't drink alcohol, so he took them away and came back with what looked like the same beverage in the same glasses. He told us they were non-alcoholic. How nice. The drink itself wasn't that nice. It tasted like really potent cherry cough syrup with a kick that hit you right in the throat. Once you watered it down a bit though, it wasn't too bad. Truth be told I was a bit skeptical about it being non-alcoholic, mostly because of the throat-kicking I got every time I swallowed, but alas, there really was nothing in it to make me tipsy. Another interesting thing about this Venetian restaurant was the American music serenading us through the speakers. 

After dinner we searched high and low for the crepe place we'd seen during our wanderings before dinner. Then we got lost (as lost as you can get on an island, apparently), but we wanted our crepe dessert, so we didn't rest until we found it. Colby and I shared a crepe with chocolate and bananas in it. Yum. No photo. Terribly sorry.

By this time it was dark, so we caught the next water taxi back to the train station, hopped on a train, and headed back to Padua for one more night before we ventured off to the Dolomites.