Venice: Day 1

Wednesday, November 05, 2008 – Today we arrived in Venice on the overnight train from Munich. Most things still seem closed at 6:30am, so we grab our luggage and hit the streets…not quite sure where our hotel is. We stopped for breakfast and I had the espresso I promised myself. We also got directions, but eventually bailed on those after buying a map and realizing we had a long way to go. So, we took our first Vaporetto ride, which are the boat equivalent of the public bus. We still had to tackle a few stairs / bridges to get to the hotel, but eventually we found our way. We left our luggage at the hotel and headed out to explore the city.

On a side note, I was unable to find my passport for check-in. We sent an email to the Kopfelsbergers hoping that it might be in their car. If not, I may have an extended vacation…I probably shouldn’t have joked about throwing out my passport once I got here.

We attempted to follow a walking tour, which is quite difficult when every alley forces you to zig zag and may eventually dead end entirely or end at a canal. Winging it does not seem to work as well as other cities. Lots of venetian masks, scarfs, and glass works being sold by vendors. Every direction contains a canal, bridge, colorful building, public square or alley...really all that I would have imagined.

I had lunch along the grand canal close to the Rialto bridge. Good food, but dinner ended up being even better...the spaghetti as the first plate was great, followed by my second plate which was pork scallopini. Great flavor! Seeing San Marco square and the view from the top was amazing. I'm just taking it all in!