We arrived at our hotel just outside Venice after a long day of
driving. We booked our hotel the day before and when we made it there
and knocked on the door for 10 minutes or so and no one came! We went
to the store further down the building complex and asked the owner of
the store if he knew if the B&B was still open or where the
owner was. He looked at us like we were crazy and told us to just
wait. We didn't wait much longer when the owner showed up and told us
in the two words of English he knew... “no space!” We tried
explaining that we booked it online and it was confirmed. He looked
it up and sure enough we had a space but he had given it away! Ah!
It's already 9pm! He walked over to the store we had just went to
with the store owner who thinks we are retarded. They talked for a
bit and then the B&B owner motioned for us to go with the store
owner. Really?! That guy doesn't like us! Where are we going?! Well
we followed him anyway just across the street to what we guess is the
store owners hotel. We got a room at his place for the same price! Oh
good! Another mini heart attack survived. :)
The next morning we took the bus into VENICE! Who knew you could
take a bus? There is just one bridge over to the island. We decided
not to get a map so we could just wander and get lost in Venice. So
we just began walking toward bridge after bridge. Nathan's favorite
architectural things are bridges so he was loving Venice. There were
many bridges but not all the streets are water. A lot of the streets
were just very narrow stone paths between many 3 or 4 story
buildings. It was just like a maze. We would walk all the way down
one street only to turn the corner and realise it was just a dead
end... of water. So funny. We did know that eventually we wanted to
get to the main square so we just wandered about looking out for
signs for it. As we walked past thousands of stores we noticed a
pattern. The shops mainly sold two things: Vanician masks and glass.
We tried on some masks in a few shops but quickly realised that the
owners did NOT like you to take pictures. One guy told us to erase
the picture.... we ran. :)
We had some lunch at this awesome kabab place. It was very cheap
and delicious. Win! After being fed we made it to the square. It was
pretty cool. It was big and open with a really nice cathedral. The
cathedral had a cool interior - gold mosaics from floor to ceiling.
Out in the square there were thousands of pigeons! I guess it's a
thing for people to put food on their heads and let birds attack
their skulls. Nathan tried to get me to do it – yeah right! I have
learned to hate pigeons. The “Rats of the Sky,” Nathan calls
them.
We spent the afternoon taking cool pictures and just having a
great time. We had to sneak into restaurants to use the bathroom
because the public toilets cost 1.50! We also somehow kept ending up
at the main square! I would think we were walking the opposite
direction and then we would end up in the square again! Crazy.For dinner we decided we wanted that same kabab place so we went back to where we started the day and retraced our steps so that we could find the same place, otherwise we would have never found it. We stayed til night just to look around and before anyone asks, no, we did not go on a gondola ride. They were outrageously expensive plus now we will have something new to do when we come back for our 50th anniversary. Venice- Another success!
