Venice Italy

Day 4
We boarded a sleeper train in Paris. It was Blakes first time on a train so we were all excited for him. Gary got a great interview, but we think the flip got left on the train..

Us just settling in for a night of sleep and travel.

We arrived in Venice bright and early. We didn't have a hotel booked, so that was the first order of business. We had searched the internet a bit for a hotel with room for four. So we walked to the closest one. Now Venice is amazing, but when it is rainy season and you are hauling a lot of luggage it can be not so fun..

The scenery around us was fantastic, but every time we had to cross a canal and carry all our bags up and down the bridges (with stairs on them) it got exhausting.

This picture is us taking a break on the first bridge we walked across.

Jen and I's bags were definitely the heaviest.. Go figure. So we kept swapping carrying them up the stairs.

We didn't really know where we were going.. We had the GPS out helping us, but with the narrow streets it kept loosing satellite signal so we got a little lost once or twice..

At one point we walked down this tiny street.. As we neared the end, we were in between two buildings that were clearly part of a school. The kids had a break so they were out smoking and going back and forth between the buildings. So here were the four of us making our way down this alley with luggage and they were looking at us all weird. After we all passed them we got to the end of the alley to water.. No walkway or corner to turn. Just water, so we all struggled to turn around and had walk past everyone again. They probably were just laughing at us.

We finally found this cute hotel that was perfect for us. Only two slight problems.. We had about 4 flights of steep stairs to climb to our room after we checked in. After walking for an hour through the streets of Venice, I was exhausted and starving. So getting to the room was a challenge. I was dying of heat!

This was us on the first set of steps at the hotel..

Venice was amazing.. It is like nothing you have ever seen or experienced. The whole city is on water, and it was not uncommon to walk to the end of a street and see this.

Something to note about our trip.. While planning it we had been watching the weather and it said it was supposed to rain every single day except the last Saturday. This wasn't just saying this in Paris or Venice, but also in Rome. So at this point on the trip we had only seen rain the night in Paris at the Eiffel Tower, but other than that we had really nice weather. The day we arrived in Venice was no exceptions. It was wonderful weather.

In a normal city there are buses or metro's, but in Venice there are water buses or water taxi's. It is crazy. This is Jen and Gary on the bus.

Excited about the blue sky!!

The view from the train station when we arrived.

It wouldn't be Italy without some Gelato. Jen was in heaven. Every corner had a Gelato shop, with hundreds of flavors.. However could
a girl choose.

Solution: Gelato several times a day with two different flavor scoops each time.

We toured Venice the first several hours by foot... Finally we decided to save our feet and take the water bus. We covered way more ground.

We went to San Marco piazza. Thus began the staggered photos you will start to see. We can thank Gary for starting the ks poses as we called them.

Gary showing his best ks pose

Before the trip Jen has picked herself up some grey Hunter rain boots. Probably the best purchase she made for the trip. She thought she would test out how waterproof they were!

As Jen would say, it was like she was photoshopped into this photo. It was picture perfect, and we were living in it.

They don't leak

The scenery was amazing..

I could have spent hours there taking pictures. It was spectacular.

So I didn't notice this until after, but take note of the two below pictures. I took them within minutes of each other. Although it is remarkable the change in lighting and stuff (thanks to a great camera and settings), that is not what to take note of. In the first picture the crane in the distance is facing right, in the second picture it is facing left. So crazy.

I absolutely love this picture. The sun was setting and Venice was beautiful. I couldn't help but stop and enjoy then moment.

One of the many times we walked down a road that only lead to the grand canal and nowhere to go, except back the way we came.

This was the view from the balcony at our hotel. So peaceful and pretty.

Out on the balcony

Another awesome picture. Jen was taking this of Blake and Gary and I jumped in. Blake is perfectly in focus and Gary and I both stuck our tongues out and are blurry. I love it.

Venice...as the guy in Paris would say.. city of romance. Can't imagine why, with views like that.