Honeymoon - Part 3: Venice

Venice Day 1

We arrived to the train station late morning from Florence and took a public bus to our hotel. The bus was not your typical bus with four wheels. In Venice, all the buses are boats! There are no cars at all in Venice. We checked into the Hilton Molino Stucky, a beautiful hotel on the Guidecca Island of Venice. It was only a quick 5 minute boat ride away from all the main attractions in Venice. Our first stop in Venice was the Piazza San Marco. It's the mother of all piazzas! The piazza is the biggest we visited in Italy and has dozens of restaurants with outdoor sitting areas. Four of the restaurants have live orchestras playing. The piazza is also known for its many pigeons. On the piazza is the Basilica di San Marco. We thought we had seen all the basilicas during our visits to Rome and Florence, but the Basilica di San Marco was special. We were swept away by the shimmering brilliance of the thousands of mosaics. It was amazing all the work that went into making the mosaics. Next, we decided to just walk around Venice. Since Venice is the city of love and the most romantic city in the world, we decided that we would kiss at the top of all the bridges we walked over. What a wonderful idea! Luckily, there are hundereds of bridges in Venice so we got plenty of opportunities to kiss. We walked, kissed, walked, kissed, etc. for a couple hours until it started to rain. We decided to buy some sandwiches and wine from Cantinone, a wine bar, and have dinner at hour hotel. We quickly made it back to the hotel to eat our dinner and watch the Italy vs. France game on our huge 50" HD TV. Kyle wore his Luca Toni jersey, and we cheered the Italians to a 1-0 victory over their arch rivals and a berth to the quarterfinals of the Euro 2008 Cup. It was a great ending to our first day in Venice.


Venice Day 2

We started day 2 by visiting the Palazzo Ducale, an amazing palace of the Doges (rulers of the Venitian Empire) that was originally built in the 7th century. The highlights were the golden staircase and the famous Bridge of Sighs. It got its name because it connects the palace to the prison, and the prisoners would sigh when walking to their cells. We decided to sigh every time we saw the bridge. We're so funny to come up with so many great games. We still played the game of kissing on the bridge from the first day! Ah, how romantic. ;-) After the Palazzo Ducale, we just walked around enjoying the beautiful city. Along the way, we visited the Rialto bridge, the first, most elegant (made out of marble), and busiest crossing over the Grand Canal. There were tons of street vendors selling fresh fruit, souvenirs, and other goodies near the bridge. Around 5 PM we went back to the Piazza San Marco to grab a drink at one of the outdoor restaurants. Elaine had the famous Belini, and Kyle had a beer. It was so relaxing to listen to the live orchestra while sipping our drinks. Our next goal was to find a gondola ride for 80 Euros. Yes, it's that expensive for about a 40-minute ride. We wanted to make sure that the gondolier was a good-looking, muscular Italian man that would be good for the pictures. We finally found our guy! You can see for yourself in the pictures. We enjoyed a romantic, relaxing, perfect ride in the gondola. Our perfect gondolier even sang to us. Ahh, it was so perfect that we wish that time could stand still... Can you tell how perfect we felt? We ended the romantic day by having dinner by the water. It was a perfect day.


Venice Day 3

We started the day by taking a private water taxi to Murano, the famous island known for its beautiful glass. It was about a 30 minute ride with just the two of us! Luckily, it was a free service from the hotel! We visited the Signoretti factory and another one next door. It's amazing how they can blow, shape and decorate the HOT glass so artistically. We spent the rest of the day walking around Venice and buying some souvenirs. We went back to the hotel for a relaxing hour at the rooftop pool! We had dinner at a garden restaurant and ended the night watching more Euro 2008 with Germany upsetting Portugal in the first round of the quarterfinals. We were sad that this was the last day of our honeymoon. It was such a wonderful trip filled with magical memories that we will take with us forever. It was a perfect beginning to a long, fun, and loving life!