First stop: Venice, Italy!!
Italy was the perfect first place to visit on our trip - how could it not be!! The weather was phenomenal and I actually got BURNT one of the days there, which was a fabulous change from the -30 degree weather we had all winter long in Chicago. Being in a place surrounded by water with warm weather was incredibly relaxing, and it just made me so happy to be able to see Venice again years later and experience it together!!
It's just so unbelievably unreal!!!
On our first day in Venice, it was a little bit of a blur considering I had been awake for over 24 hours, since sleeping on the plane just didn't happen, and I HAD to stay up all day in Venice to adjust to a European time zone. However, I have to say after 3 trips to Europe in the last 8 months, I now feel like a jet lag pro!!! :) Got there and kept on going till 8 PM, had a glass of wine and a few cappuccinos with Italian espresso, of course, to help keep me awake - and slept 15 hours that night, woke up 100% on Italian time. No problems at all after that!! Woohoo!!!
The next two days, however, were unforgettable. We spent them getting cappuccinos under the Rialto bridge, red wine in San Marco Square and climbing up the tower to see the view of Venice from above, visiting the Doges Palace, taking gondola rides, and exploring canals.
Speaking of, I'm having some serious problems readjusting to American espresso. It's just not the same, and it now depresses me every morning making a latte out of my Tassimo machine! Someone buy me an Illy machine & coffee pods!
Sitting near the Rialto Bridge was especially perfect. It was the place most densely populated by continuous outdoor cafes right on the canal, and the sun always seemed to be shining over there. :)
Unfortunately, the ONLY bad part about traveling as 2 people is that you have to live in selfie-city, unless you want to try to explain to the person standing next to you that doesn't speak English how to take a picture with your camera. However, I don't think we're too too bad at it!! :) If Venice was not sinking - which it will probably still be fine within our lifetime, I would live here in a heartbeat. Just need to learn Italian, already have the Italian last name - I'm set.
They had a produce market one day on the other side of the Rialto, and I was pretty much obsessed. It's been studied that the ideal way to merchandise a store or shop that is most appealing to a customer is a market-style - similar to what Lush does with their bath bombs in baskets, all on display for you to touch and ultimately want to grab 5,000 more!! If we had had a kitchen in Venice, I would've gone wild at this market. I just love how it looks. Some of the other market stands had hot peppers hanging on twine from the ceiling of the tent, and I could now kick myself for not getting a picture of it while I was there.
Seriously can't even describe the rest of the trip to Venice - it was just a total dream-like experience. We weren't sure at first that we were going to go here, given Venice to Vienna, to Prague, to Berlin, to Enschede, to Amsterdam was a LOT of ground to cover - but so glad we decided to. We ended our last day in Venice with a gondola ride - completely overpriced because it's a major tourist activity, but it was definitely worth the 120 Euro we had to pay. And it made for great pictures :)
After our time in Venice was over, our next stop was flying to Vienna through a connection in Berlin. Stay tuned! ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment