Venice

11th March

We headed out the door of our Florence accommodation to the café where our accommodation provided breakfast. We were in a hurry as we had a train to catch. We stepped outside and realised that it was raining. Off we scurried to the café not wanting to waste any time returning for our rain jackets. We arrived a minute later to find the owner still in the process of opening up. It turns out that he opens slightly later on a Sunday.

After a short wait we were given our pastries, juice and coffees (Jay had two since I don't like it), then it was back in the rain to put on our rain jackets and pick up our luggage. It was a 10 minute walk to the station and we knew the way as we'd walked it several times by now.

We hopped on the train and headed off to Venice.

When we arrived in Venice the rain had stopped. We followed Google Maps to find the hotel and ended up somewhere that didn't seem right. Jay called the hotel and we headed back the way we came. Turned out we were only a few minutes away from the station and we could've saved ourselves quite a bit of walking. The guy at reception said we hadn't gone too far. Other customers had gone further! Venice addresses are extremely confusing.

Jay naively decided to follow the map to some of the recommended places. I looked on amused as I remember from my previous visit that Venice is a maze.

Within minutes we were lost but enjoying the sights along the way. Then it started to rain and rain and rain..... (you get the idea).

The narrow lanes turned into umbrellas jostling for space and the pavements slowly turned into shallow streams. We carried on my shoes becoming saturated. Seeing Venice in the rain is not ideal.

Eventually using Google Maps we found the famous Rialto bridge and San Marco Square. The church was very dim inside and we decided to return tomorrow if the weather improved so we could see the views from upstairs.

We headed home feeling a bit over it. The puddles were numerous and deep and my feet were cold. Back at the hotel we had some tea to warm up and we peeled our wet socks off.

A while later we braved the weather again to find dinner. I ended up getting pasta at a bar so it was pretty average but we didn't want to walk in the rain anymore. Jay decided to just have bread in the hotel. They had been putting up temporary boardwalks all around the city and we could see why. The water was at least ankle deep in places.

Jay went outside the hotel door to take a picture of the waterlogged city and the boardwalks. As he stepped outside the hotel door he found himself calf deep in water. He came upstairs telling me that now he'd completely soaked through his dry pair of shoes!

The picture that caused Jay to have wet shoes

12th March

We woke up and checked out how wet our shoes were. Mine were damp but a definite improvement on the night before. I then decided that the hairdryer would be perfect to dry my shoes some more. It had proved useless at drying my hair the night before so here was it's chance for redemption!

It did a pretty good job! I decided to put some shower caps over my socks though because the soles were still a little damp!

We headed out and decided to buy the water-bus day pass and spend the day on the water.

First we headed off to Murano Island because it wasn't accessible by foot. When we got there we saw a little shop making glass beads.

We then wandered around admiring all the glass creations in the shops being careful not to knock any with our backpacks.

We caught the boat back home before heading out again this time to San Marco to climb up to the top for the views. The church was much easier to see this time as it seems to mostly rely on natural light. After waiting in the wrong queue for awhile we paid to enter the museum where the stairs to the top were.

The view was lovely and the museum was okay. It also offered a nice view of the interior of the church below.

After that we went to the information centre to find out where the Museo della Musica (Music Museum) was. It turned out to be a short walk away. We admired the old instruments, read a little bit about Vivaldi and headed back to the water-bus.

This time we went to San Giorgio Maggiore. The church was impressive. Then it was back on the boat.

We then decided to ride to the Rialto bridge so we could see it without the rain. It was only a stop away. We admired the views and went for a walk. We almost got lost again getting back to the boat but luckily Jay realised that we had taken a wrong turn.

We got off near the bus station to go to the supermarket to buy breakfast for the next day. Then we walked around the piazza there but there wasn't anything for dinner so we went to the train station and had some pizza and folded bread item. They were exceedingly average.

Jay wanted to see Venice at night so we decided to ride the Line 1 route. It was much longer than expected so we had a late night. It was an enjoyable day on the waterbuses though.