City of Boats

6/16

Venice was a blur of wandering.  Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were spent walking the streets of Venice, taking lots of pictures of the beautiful canals, and eating lots of falafel and pizza. 

Tuesday we got into the pension and cleaned up, and then went out to wander. We found a nice piazza with lots of dogs- so we had a great dog watching and petting fest. 

We ended up wandering to the Rialto bridge (multiple times, because it always seems to pop up). Venice is known as a wandering city, but it's legitimately hard to find things if you try.... So we took the opposite approach and stumbled upon shops and cool buildings, and piazzas.

Wednesday we took a water taxi to San Marco piazza, and, saw our first (and hopefully last) flasher waiting for that taxi. I will forever be trying to erase that unpleasant sight from my memory.

Scenic view from the water taxi!

Then we went to Doge's Palace, which was very interesting. Inside are rooms and councils used by the state starting in the 1200s to 1300s, some creepy and smelly prisons in the basement, and the personal favorite part for me (besides the upstairs view), were the old maps used in the times of the crusades. 

And while inside the Bridge of Sighs inside the palace, we stuck our hands through the stone design and waved to everyone taking pictures. A baby waved back! 

The rest of the day was spent like any other- wandering and spending time near the canal. We saw some crabs in the water, which we thought was quite exotic. 

We ate a nice dinner along the canal to celebrate Greta's last night on our adventure. She head back to Germany on Thursday, beause her Interrail pass was out of days. We all ordered ordered pasta, and we were all pleased with what we got. 

Thursday morning and early afternoon we spent in a piazza, hanging out and writing in our journals to record everything we've done (we are all really behind in those...) and then went back to the hostel to pick up our bags from the pension before our train ride at 3:25 (Greta's was later). Franca, the pension keeper, was nowhere to be found. We sat... And sat... And sat up until me had 30 minutes to get to the train station, get a ride to the next station over, and catch our train.

We sprinted and pushed, making it just in time to hop on the train, but only a minute to say bye to Greta. 

And then there were two.