Venice - July 15 & 16

We left Ljubljana pretty early for Villach, Austria, where we would connect to Venice... seems silly that we went all the way up through Austria, but whatever! Our train was running late even when it left, and we were really worried about missing the connection since another train wasn't coming for quite a few hours, and would cause Kasey to miss her night train, but it all worked out and we got there in enough time to make the second train, and we arrive in Venice around 1:30 that afternoon. I was really excited, because I've always wanted to go to Italy and Venice, and Kasey was excited to go back because she had loved it when she was there earlier in the summer. Kasey stored her stuff and I bought my train reservation to Rome for the next day and off we went!

In Venice, as you may know, everything is on canals - there are some streets, but only pedestrian streets - no cars, and everyone travels around by boat! So that includes public transportation, so we got to take one of the water buses, or 'vaporetti' to get to by hotel. Yep, that's right, I said hotel, not hostel! I decided that since I wasn't going to have a lot of time in Venice, I wanted to be close to the action, and since most of the hostels are way outside town, I splurged for once and booked a real hotel in the middle of Venice! We found it without too much trouble, although it was really hot out, the hottest its been on this trip. I checked into my nice room and ditched the stuff and we set off to see the city for a few hours before Kasey left.

Venice is famous for quite a few things, one of them being the glass-blowing industry, so they have tons of glass jewelry and other items for sale evvvverywhere. So we had fun souvenier shopping, and I actually bought stuff for once! We had a good lunch and trekked to St. Marks Square to see the tourists and pigeons swarming everywhere, and had a great afternoon strolling around and trying to get pictures of the gondolas. We cruised down the Grand Canal on one of the water buses (the gondolas are wayyyyy to expensive) and before we knew it, it was time for Kasey to go! So I sent her off to Paris, and suddenly, I was traveling alone!! Crazy!! So I got myself some ice cream to console myself over my loss of traveling companion and headed back to the hotel, I wasn't even hungry enough for dinner, and eating alone is no fun!

I went to bed pretty early that night, because I wanted to get up early in the morning and see St. Mark's Square before all the people came, but when the morning came, I didn't want to get up at all! haha. So I showered and waited for my free hotel breakfast with really good hot chocolate and packed up my stuff. Around 9 I checked out of the hostel, and set out to accomplish my first goal - see if maybe Italy would allow me to ship my wine home... the UPS store said its near impossible, but they did sell me some bubble wrap so I could bring the wine home on the plane, and hence I have been carrying it to this day, and will be carrying that darn wine until I get home haha. But after that, I went to visit the church of St. Giovanni, which was near my hostel, and then headed off to Murano, which is the glass-blowing island. I got to see a few different furnaces and cool glass objects being made, and did a bit of shopping, or more like window shopping, for quite a while. I just couldn't being myself to buy at $200 vase that I'd have to lug around or pay to ship haha, but they were beautiful!

After my morning in Murano, I headed to join the crowds in town and went to St. Marks, which was very beautiful, and then fed pigeons in the square with my granola bar crumbs, and ate lunch at one of the expensive cafes on the square with live classical music - fun! I wandered around quite a bit, and cruised down the Grand Canal for a bit before heading back to the hotel to get my stuff and head for Rome. It the heat, I was so tired - I had had plenty of water, but I still felt exhausted and a little dizzy. Luckily I made it back to the hotel fine, and then to the train station, where I caught the train to Rome and sadly have to leave Venice behind.

Venice was really great, and not a bad place to be alone. There isn't a ton to actually see, I guess, but its a great place to wander around and enjoy, every inch of it is beautiful!