Venice To Roma

One of Venice's many random piazzas in the maze of streets

We had just arrived- thus completing my dream!

Mon June 11

So after the long six hr train ride we finally arrived, and the weather was beautiful. We first took our bus to Mestre, which took longer than you may think.  When we arrived, luckily Quin is the guru of traveling, we found our airbandb.com apt, and met our owner...she's great...gave us the keys to our rm and we were off to Venice. We took the Grand Canal tour via Rick Steve's audio tour, and it was gorgeous. Wagner died here, really neat old, medieval houses still dot the canal.  We just took it all in. The sights, smells, sounds of Venice. It's hard to phrase into words how breathtaking the canal is, but it's an amazing perserved city.  We got off at St. Zacharia vaporetto stop, which led to San Marco Piazza (St. Mark's Square).  We knew we needed to eat, but we were just exploring this huge place. Everyone's trying to sell things...some guy handed me a flower...yep not free, so we handed it back and he got mad! We ate at a delicious restaurant, and met our friend Richard. He's from Ohio, but lives in China. He was a super nice guy and we chatted for awhile. We were grateful for really nice people. He actually got a pizza for his son, and he didn't want it, so he gave it to us. We were so happy and grateful. We decided to get home knowing it would take some time. We were right. We took the vaporetto back, and the bus home. Btw don't leave Italian windows open for awhile, bugs get in....that's what welcomed us home! Yay! 

After a goodnight's rest today, we had a cute Italian breakfast and got on our way back to Venice to explore and figure out our train tickets via Roma. We had to take our luggage with us around Venice, which was quite the adventure. However, it was so fun around Venice, exploring the small streets, getting panini's...seeing the luster of the piazza's was awesome. Loving the public drinking fountains was my favorite. We loved seeing the birds, local Venetians and the beautiful bridges all throughout the city. On our way to Roma we met some fellow Chicagoans from Yorkville (shoutout to mom...their kids go to St. Mary's church in Plano...i think) and also from Elmhurst. It was super fun to talk to them about Chicago, life..., church...it was really neat to connect with them. The man was a financial planner too...what are the odds? We really enjoyed the four hour train ride a lot more.