June 27th - 29th - Venice

Alyssa and I can for sure win the amazing race but more on that later!

We woke up super early and caught a flight to Venice. My first thought about Italy, NO ONE looked at our passports! They didn't even have a booth to walk through in case they one day decide they want to look at passports! We took a water taxi over to the Island, I have a handy dandy map for you to look at if you don't know anything about Venice (two in fact!), and had to walk to rest of the way to our hostel. The owner is a great guy who gave us a ton of information but then we were both pretty exhausted and took long naps. For dinner we explored and stopped at the first place that called our name. It was nothing special, I had spaghetti with mushrooms BUT the exciting thing that did happen when we were at our dinner in a restaurant that had no more than five tables, Hayden Panettiere walked in asking to use the loo (I like pretending I'm British, that means restroom, bathroom, water closet, ladies room, toilet, etc) and the lady wouldn't let her. Well she wasn't happy about that and stormed out! We had to go see if it was really her so we each took turns checking it out!

Hayden and her super huge boyfriend

After dinner we found the only area that had more then one bar and had a few drinks. The local cocktail is called Spritz, I have no idea what it is but it's not bad!

Venice at night

The next day we got up pretty early and followed the walking path our hostel guy suggested for hours! Walking around that city it a nightmare! It's beautiful but super easy to get lost and then never find yourself again. We enjoyed it though.

My breakfast, focaccia! There is no way to cut
carbs out of your diet here

There was a huge market and fish market that I would definitely frequent if I was a local.

After walking for another few miles we stopped for lunch and both had absolutely delicious caprese salads. Corn in caprese is new for me but the sweetness really adds to it!

I guess I might be related to some Italians!

Oh all day I was trying to find a post office to send a few things home because I've done a bit of shopping (K, maybe more than a bit) and my bag is ready to explode. I went to the biggest post office on the island and they were super rude and wouldn't sell me a box! I stopped in every store I could think of to buy a box, a few other post offices that also didn't have boxes, and I still have all that crap that I would rather not throw away. Basically the Italians need FedEx.

After lunch we walked all the way back to the hostel and then got on a water bus to another island close by. Burano is known for very colorful houses and it's adorable. It's a tiny little island so we walked the whole thing in a short amount of time and then stopped for dinner. We both ordered seafood pasta that was delicious!

View from the water bus

The ambulances on Burano!

Then it was back on the 1+ water bus ride to the main island. We stopped at our usual place for a few cocktails and then went to bed. It was a seriously long but wonderful day!

Today, that's right folks, TODAY (I'm excited I'm actually writing a post on the same day things happened!) we went over to Murano. It's the island known for making glass. We were a little bummed because all the factories were closed, no one told us things close on Saturday, BUT we made friends with a very nice guy named Gianni and he hooked it up! We got to watch a guy make a vase and a horse, or unicorn, or something. We also bought a few things and had a lovely lunch!

I had mushroom pizza, not life changing
so I'll just have to try others

Alyssa had Penne with Pesto, delicious pesto,
she won the lunch award today

 Due to our surprise glass demonstration we got back way later than planned which lead to running through the streets of Venice with our 19 kilo bags strapped our backs. We didn't start out running, we were confident we could make it walking at a quick pace but those little streets packed with loads of tourists hindered our pace. Thirty minutes and five pounds lighter from lost water weight we decided we had to run to have a chance at making our train. I wish I had footage of this debacle cause that shit had to be hilarious! Have you ever tried to run with that much weight on your back? Well it does not go well. Of course the last bridge had to be a mile in the air and I was praying I didn't fall down the damn thing. We made it, soaking wet, and missed our train by one minute. The good news, we didn't have to pay for new tickets and we had the most well earned gelato of our lives. If you'd like to know how far we went look at the map on your right and zoom into Venice. We went from the far east end all the way to the far west end. I'd say we're ready for the amazing race!

Overall Venice is a gorgeous and very unique city!

The street our hostel was on

My favorite picture from Venice!

We made it to Verona and we're currently staying in an adorable B&B that's run by a delightful young couple. It's up in the hills so they had to pick us up from the train station. They also fed us horse for dinner! We both felt a little bad eating horse but it was delicious! Apparently it's a thing they eat here and I can see why. It's very tender and super flavorful! His mom smokes it for 12 hours! Ok that's been long enough. Time for sleep!