Day 1 in Venice:
My trip to Europe started off in Venice, Italy. We only ended up staying here for one day, two nights, and let me tell you, this trip did not start off on the right foot. When my mom and I finally arrived in Venice, we had been awake for about 24 hours, so we were exhausted. To get to our hotel in Venice, we had to take a boat ride. Since we were so exhausted, we had a hard time figuring out what stop to get off at. So naturally, we got off at the wrong stop, one of the first stops, but supposed to get off at one of the last ones. This resulted in my mother and I trekking our 50 pound suitcases through Venice. You might not know this, but Venice has stairs everywhere, so about every 30 steps I was taking these suitcases up and down these stairs. It took us about half an hour to get to the rough location of where our hotel was and in the end, we never did find our hotel. We wandered around for another hour, had three locals helping us and none of us could find the hotel we booked. Thankfully, I saw a hotel across from us and they had two night availability. We had originally planned on staying for three, but we were just happy to find a place to sleep. After we checked into the new hotel, we relaxed for a little bit, went and got pizza and peach bellinis, and then crashed for the night. A fun tidbit of information is that the peach bellini was originally created in Venice.
Day 2 in Venice:
On our second day we did a lot of wandering around through the streets of Venice, looking at souvenirs and, the buildings around us. Since Venice is such an old place, the buildings were extremely cool to look at and see along with the cobbled streets. The streets of Venice did not have any cars on them, so any place you went, you either walked or took a water taxi; there was a lot of foot traffic. When planning our trip to Venice, there was one thing I wanted to do: a gondola ride. This was the final thing we did on our second day. On the gondola ride, we could see the buildings from another angle and learn a little more about the history of Venice through the guides stories. One of the things I found interesting about the gondola ride was the water levels. Going around the backs of buildings, you could see staircases that could not be used because the water was covering them. This was a super cool perspective of Venice. Overall, there was not a lot to do in Venice other than wander around looking at souvenirs, do a gondola ride, and visit the Rialto steps.
Would I go again?
While Venice was a nice place, it is not somewhere I am dying to return to. Having been there once I feel as though I have seen everything there is to see and, it was honestly a blessing in disguise that we ended up leaving a day earlier than planned. If I were to go again, I would definitely try to visit the Rialto steps and also do a day trip to the near by islands of Burano and Murano.
Highlights of Venice: gondola ride, souvenirs, gelato.
Fun fact about Venice: they are known for their glass made in Murano as well as face masks.
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