Venezia

Today we traveled from Rome to Venice which was about 4 hours by train. I truly had no idea what to expect when we got here. Of course I have seen pictures and videos, but until you exit the train station and are standing near the Grand Canal you have no idea. It’s such a unique and special place. 

We are staying in a cute little apartment hosted by the sweetest lady, Laura. She has thought of everything and even made a little book of information for everything we could want to know. This was her late mother’s home and she has excellent reviews in her guestbook. It’s funny though because we are only allowed to run one appliance at a time. It’s hot here and we had to turn the fan off for Brian to make coffee. I did a load of laundry while we went out to dinner. Being creative with our use of electricity will be of importance for a couple of days. 

We spent our day walking with Brian (everyone) looking at his phone Pokémon Go style. Everyone using google maps to help make sense of the labyrinth that is Venice. It didn’t take too long to find our place, and it didn’t take too long to get lost again. Getting lost here seems like it’s part of the fun. It’s really hard to even explain the area. Just google it. You’ll see it way better than I can explain. 

We started with some food from an award winning street food spot. It was pretty good. Honestly pizza isn’t too hard to mess up, but we have been able to point out some that are better than others. I think they may have been in this Netflix documentary. I’ll check that out once we are home. 

The rest of the day was spent walking around and peeking into shops, sitting in the shade, and eating some good gelato. Funny thing is that we really have not bought anything on this trip. A couple little things for the girls but that’s it. We are traveling with backpacks and space is very limited. What we are saving in souvenir shopping, we are spending on gelato. It evens out I supppose. 

We were really surprised this evening when we found that the rising tide had flooded the piazza. I had heard it happens at a certain time of the year, but there is was! 

The last part of our day was the sunset quest. We had scoped out the bridges to see where we would return later for the show. It wasn’t a spectacular sunset, but the combination of the boats steering around each other made for a nice relaxing evening. Enjoy the pics. I am going to sleep. See you tomorrow.

Girandola and Walking

 

We are riding backwards on a train from Rome to Venice today. A treat to be blogging from an Italian train. I never worked on the blog last night because we had a night of adventures and a migraine. So, I’m a day behind. I love finishing our days by writing about them but all I could think about last night was going to sleep. 

We had a smallish day of morning adventuring yesterday. We visited the Baths of Caracalla which was pretty cool and also scorching hot. We are enjoying a heatwave here. We thought we would be able to tour underground there and escape the heat, but not so much. We did enjoy an art exhibition there though. I love black and white photography and there were some really cool photos that looked even better amidst the Roman ruins.  

After that mileage we headed back to Trastevere for some lunch with plans to go chill (literally) in our air conditioned apartment. I felt a headache coming so a nap sounded perfect. 

We had Trapezzini and Suppli for lunch.

Ended up sleeping until 5 which was good because we had planned to be out late. Yesterday was a holiday to honor the city’s patron saints, Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The night is celebrated with a fireworks show called Girandola. It’s a 22 minute firework display that dates back to the 15th century. 

We had to make sure to be out for that and along the way we planned on seeing the sunset from a beautiful lookout we had found earlier. On the way we made a stop to take a peek from a tiny keyhole with a huge view. The Knights of Malta Keyhole. It was pretty neat. Our cameras would not focus through the keyhole so the view I’m sharing is not my photo. 

It was a super quick peek and we had the pleasure of seeing a wedding party followed by a bride and groom leave the nearby church and head down the path to their celebration. Gosh, what a gorgeous area for a wedding. I’m a sucker for romantic things like that. It added to our adventure for sure. If you’re in Rome, take a walk up the hill for these little additions to your itinerary. Worth it.

After this visit I had a bad headache and a full bladder. Brian’s blog would probably be titled, “Finding Italian Bathrooms for my Wife”. I’m sure I was an awesome travel partner. We headed down the hill and off  toward our sunset spot. Found a quick stop for some OK pizza and I used their bathroom. 

This stop put us pretty close to sunset and we had a ways to go from there to see it. We rushed through the maze of Roman streets dodging millions of people who were also out to celebrate the festivities. And. We missed the sunset. We still rushed to the top of the hill in hopes of seeing the colors of the end of the day appear. At least we were up there and ready for the fireworks. We found a great spot next to the guy singing sappy love songs in hopes of filling his pockets with euros. We had about a 30 minute wait before the show. We were finally early for something! 

After the show we made our way through the crowds toward the Coloseum to get some night shots. The energy was so fun. There were musicians singing and huge crowd participation. It was a fun night to be out. 

 Poor Brian was dragging me along behind him on a walk from Trevi fountain to the Colosseum.We made it though! Lots of people were headed there for some night shots. We made it there at about 11:40 and it was bustling. We took some photos and then made our plan for getting us way back across town to our apartment. We have walked back and forth a couple times but my head said no. Brian found us a bus and we got most of the way home. Just a little but further from the bus stop. It was a welcomed ride. It was a good night and it was very much time for goodnight. Our small adventure day turned into 31,000 steps. 

We have another couple hours on the train. It’s kinda nice to give our feet a little break. I look forward to Venice and to our next adventure.

10,000 before 8

Today. Was. Crazy. But first, look at the beautiful morning. Taken from the Piazza di Spagna at 6:41 this morning. See, we had heard that if you get up early and get to Trevi fountain super early, you can get it without a crowd. Hahahahaha. Maybe in 1984 that worked. Today, not so much. We got up at 5:00, left our place at 5:30, and arrived at 6. It was crowded! I saw a model, a bride and groom, and some man wearing some silk couture cloak. Where the fountain lacked in emptiness, it overflowed with excellent people watching. 

After we enjoyed the fountain with friends, we headed over to the Piazza di Spagna and Spanish steps. It was a beautiful view where  we thought we might try to be at sunset. At this point it’s about 6:45. We had 8:45 skip the line tour reservations for the Colosseum. We needed to make sure to find a place to have some breakfast before our very long tour. We found a little cafe near the colosseum. We try to avoid eating near the touristy areas, but it couldn’t be avoided. The croissants and cappuccino weren’t very good. I didn’t even remember to take a picture. As my title mentioned, we had already walked a lot of steps. 

We made our way to the colosseum, which by the way is crazy to come upon in a modern city! We met up with our tour group and started in the underground part of the coliseum. I didn’t know too much history before the tour. I think I still don’t, but learned a few things too. It was above 90 degrees and after 3 hours, I was as crispy as the delicious crust from my I pizza the day before. There is a kitty that lives in the Colosseum. For the life of me, I cant remember his name.

It was about 11:45 when me moved on from the ruins and our feet were ready for rest. We were also ready to eat! 

We headed to a spot Brian found with good reviews. It was super good! Had a lemongrass iced tea and pizza and I was a happy traveler again. Tired of walking, but ready to move on. We did some gelato after lunch. It was so good and the line was long to prove it. I had a cream and chocolate swirl and also caffe. It was interesting because it was a strong coffee flavor and wasn’t sweet. It was the first time I had had ice cream that wasn’t sweet. 

At 2:15 we were just about ready to head back to our place to rest and Brian got a text reminder for a 4:00 tour at the Borghese Gallery. Oops. We had a tour on Saturday that they cancelled so he had rebooked for today and we kinda forgot. Now. We had  two choices. First, we could run home (30 minute walk), shower real quick (it was 90+ and we were gross), and then take a bus to the museum. Or second, we stay dirty in that area and cruise over to the museum from where we were. We needed to bathe. So, first choice it was. We hurried back to our place and arrived at about 2:45. The bus was coming at 3:14 and we are about a 7 minute walk from the stop. We both took 2 minute showers and were back on the street in less than 15. We needed bus tickets which took until 3:05 to buy. Got them! Walked very very quickly to the bus stop and arrived at the exact moment that the bus was there only he wouldn’t open the door because he had already closed it. Next but was at 3:20. Our tour was supposed to meet at the gallery at 3:45. The bus came a little late and we hit some traffic. Off the bus at 3:58. Literally ran down the street, ran into the museum courtyard, and found the tour groups at exactly 4:00!. The one we were looking for wasn’t there. We got some help and found them…only they discovered that we were in the group that the tour guide had cancelled. Yep. Cancelled. We got a couple options and chose to do a self guided tour with a partial refund. We went in and we’re done wandering this smaller than expected museum by 4:45. What an afternoon. 

Headed back toward our place and decided that maybe since we were out we would look for some dinner. Found a spot we had considered going the night before and had a pretty good dinner .

After dinner it was about 7:45 and we decided on one more adventure. We hiked up Junicolo hill  and watched the sunset over the city. it was a great way to digest dinner!

It was a great end to a 36,670 step day. We are exhausted. I’m sleeping in tomorrow. It’s supposed to be high 90’s tomorrow. We are hoping to do some underground touring to beat the heat. It’s a holiday here tomorrow, so fingers crossed!