VENICE

We landed in Venice in the early morning on June 7th.  I changed on the plane from my travel attire into a flowy pink skirt because we thought that we would be roaming around for a while before getting into our hotel room.  When we landed we were really surprised at how backed up customs was from all of the extremely large tour groups and school groups.  We ended up in a line that was just over an hour long.

Private Water Taxi

When we landed I arranged for a private water taxi transportation to drive us the the front door our our hotel.  The window for this was just to the left when exiting customs.  It had our name printed on the window so it wasn’t hard to find.  They took our bags for us to a car and the car drove us to the docks.  Their really just isn’t any other way to roll into Venice! It was pure luxury.  The reason this all came about, was because this was the furthest we had ever stayed from a port and I honestly had no idea if we would get lost or not with heavy luggage.  Turns out I was right and their would have been lots of stairs. It was like having a private excursion before even setting foot into the dream that is Venice.

Bed And Breakfast

When looking for hotels in Venice I was honestly so shocked and the prices.  I had only ever stayed here in off season/winter.  I mostly stayed in a place called Chiara that actually was renovated and has lots its Venetian charm for a more modern look and extremely expensive price tag.  In any case I looked for two weeks and almost considered not even staying in Venice and opting for somewhere else. I finally found a GEM!  A Bed and breakfast that was run by a hotel called Aqua Palace.  This was important to me because of our luggage.  I know from past trips that if you take the train into the center they had luggage storage you can pay for, but we had gifts and things I wanted to make sure weren’t rummaged through.

Aqua B arranged for our water taxi reservations that dropped us off at the front door and for our return.  When we arrived they had prepared the room for us to enter EARLY which is incredible!  It’s a little apartment building right around the corner from the hotel itself.  Quiet and beautiful.  The decor was literally stunning, we had breakfast delivered to our room, and the most incredible air conditioning!  On the second night we had incredibly early flight so they made us a breakfast to go bag!

Leisure

Brendan and I had been to Venice a few times so we honestly didn’t really make any plans other than wanting to walk around.  On the first day we sat right near San Marco square and had lunch and our first of many Aperol Spritz.  We browsed all day  stopping for coffees and drinks and fell asleep before dinner.  We were so thankful to have breakfast delivered to us first thing because both of us were wide awake and starving 🙂 It had rained and thundered that night so the next morning we decided to take the elevator of the bell tower and actually were up their when it rang (something I do not recommend)  It was also just as windy and miserable as the first time I went! 🙂  We then popped over to get into the lineup for St. Marks church that started about 45 minutes before they opened for the day.  We were about 5th in line.  I don’t regret going to see it again.  I am always just so impressed with the mosaic work and the floor in that church is just unbelievable.  We also payed to go and see the crypt of St. Mark.

Overall it was an easy going stay in Venice and so much fun.  Be careful with where you decide to have dinner these days.  We ended up at a place that we honestly should have googled before sitting down and not only were overcharged but the food just wasn’t good at all.

I honestly could list off a few of our favorite places, however, it’s just one of those places that their is NO wrong itinerary. You cant go wrong with any which way.

Venice is a MUST!