"The most romantic city in the world."
Dave and I have been pyning at the chance to go to Venice since we moved to the Czech Republic in 2008. I had always heard so many great things about the city.... the canals, the gondola's, the romance and of course the light. Apparently, Venice has different light than anywhere else in the world. I thought that it was a bit hoaxy but, it's true.
We found a really good deal via Wizz Air, a low cost airliner from Hungary, and for the equivalent of $50 we had return tickets. Then I started searching for a hotel. I found one on hotels.com and for a reasonable price, and being 3 blocks from St. Mark's Square didn't hurt the hotel's reputation either! (www.hotelpaganelli.com)
It took around an hour and a half to make it to the city from the airport and since this isn't tourist season we got a prime spot on the #1 water bus for our adventure down the Grand Canal. I can't remember the last time we took so many pictures... but i think between both Dave and I we took over 1,200 photos. Not all of them were keepers, but here are some of the best provided by Dave!
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| Puppy dog riding a boat. He was loving every minute of it |
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| Moving down the Grand Canal. We managed to get a prime spot at the front of the #1 |
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| San Marco Square was only 3 blocks from our hotel |
We got off of the water bus and walked about 20 yards to the front of our hotel. We had decided to pay the extra 10-15 EUR a night so that we could stay in the main part of the hotel and have a room that looked over the court yard. Our room was small by US standards, a normal European room by everyone else's standards. It was clean and very nice and we had this adorable little balcony. We agreed that we needed to buy some wine and drink it on the our sweet little balcony before we left. We didn't however, it was way too cold!
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| Our hotel room. Grand Canal, but we had a court yard view.. still so beautiful though |
Having looked all around our room (all 10 square meters of it) we set out for a short day of sightseeing. I had a whole day planned for us since I am the tour guide whenever we leave the Czech Republic and are not going to England or Scotland; somewhere Dave knows well... Germany is also on this list because of Dave and his love affair with the DHL corporate office. First stop was St.Mark's square where we did the basilica and walked around the square. Followed by a quick jaunt into the Campo di Santo Stefano and onto the Accademia (art gallery).
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| St. Mark's Square |
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| Right before we went inside the Basilica... amazing! |
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| Hello gold leaf ceiling |
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| Gondola, yes please... but without the 80EURO |
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| Campo Santo Stefano |
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| on the Accademia bridge |
As the sun was setting we headed for the over side of Dorsoduro, the district where the art gallery is located, and we came across what looks like a giant pirate ship. We didn't stay in this area for long as we were both starving and super ready to eat something. Plus, I needed water!
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| Pirate ship |
I found out about our dinner from a NY Times blogger called the Frugal Traveler. I am, myself becoming a Frugal woman, so it only seemed right that I take his advice... especially with all of the horror stories I had heard from other Czech friends who warned me Venice was really expensive (they were right by the way). The palace was called Al Portego and I can highly recommend this place if anyone is planning a trip to Venice anytime soon. The menu is only in Italian; I needed the waitress to translate basically everything for me because I am useless at any food vocabulary that isn't Czech. Once it was translated I decided to go for the squid which is cooked in its own ink. Dave decided on a pasta with a meat sauce... we were both incredibly satisfied with the food and the price. As is always the case when ever I go anywhere with Dave we had two German ladies sit down at our table and Dave decided he was going to speak to them. He's such a flirt!
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| Dinner night one- amazing red wine and of course... a table of old German ladies |
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Squid cooked in it's own ink. It was really good until half way through and then it became too much
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