Venice Gets a Queen...

…best I’ve ever seen.  Well, Venice was great, maybe not the best I’ve ever seen, but still good!

A few weeks ago Courtney and I went to Venice, Italy.  The whole experience was very different for us.  We didn’t fly out of Stansted like we always do, we didn’t fly on RyanAir like we always do, we didn’t stay in a hostel like we always will, and we didn’t stay within walking distance of the city center like we always plan to.  Quite the change for us!

We flew out of London Gatwick on Friday morning bright and early.  Unlike Stansted, the buses to Gatwick are far, far away!  Being 2 am, the tube is closed, but the buses are running, so I thought, lets save some money and take a bus to the bus.  No.  I left in what I thought was plenty of time, but again no.  I didn’t realize that there were about 100 bus stops along Baker Street and mine was nowhere to be found.  After speed walking for 15 minutes I asked a taxi driver where the stop was.  Not helpful.  I gave up 3.5 minutes later and hailed a taxi to take me to the bus stop.  20 pounds later, I was at the EasyBus pick up.  Courtney was already there, thank god.  We got on our EasyBus and made the freezing cold hour long trip to the airport. 

I barely remember the airport, other than it was weird and I missed Stansted.  We flew Monarch Airlines, and unlike RyanAir, we actually got to walk through a tunnel thingy and onto the plane.  Classy.  And we had assigned seats.  Double classy.  I slept the entire two hour flight.  Didn’t even notice the takeoff.  I did wake up in time to see the Alps though!  We landed at Venice Marco-Polo dazed and confused.  

We finally figured out that we needed to take a bus to our hotel.  That’s right, hotel.  Well, the directions we were given weren’t very clear.  And we got worried we had missed our stop and finally jumped off at the train station to get better directions.  We went into a Best Western and asked for directions and they told us to go back through the train station and into a different area and then ask for directions there.  Did that.  

Asked for directions at every possible hotel that wasn’t ours.  About an hour and a half later and after circling 134851507 times I finally had a stroke of genius and decided to look at the map and figure it out myself and stop asking people.  It worked.  We walked into Hotel Villa Serena only a little worse for the wear.  It’s hot in Italy.   

 The “hotel” was sketchy.  But we did have our own room.  And bathroom.  With a shower head just stuck on the wall.  No stall, no door.  Weird.  But it was all ours!  After a bit of a rest we decided to head into actual Venice.  We were staying on the mainland.  Oops.  That’s not what the website told me.  Oh well.  We took a bus and once we made it to the point where there are no roads for cars, we got off and had some lunch!  Pasta, of course.  Followed by gelato, of course.  My favorite part about Italy!  We then bought three-day water bus passes and went on the canals!

First gelato of my second trip to Italy!

That first day, we walked around and got our bearings.  We went to San Marco (St. Mark’s Square, for us English speaking folks).  Walked across the Rialto Bridge and just marveled at the canals. And kept seeing locations from the movie The Tourist! One of my favorites.   

St. Mark's Square! The next weekend it was calf high with flood waters!

Rialto Bridge!

Johnny Depp (well probably his stunt double) jumped from that balcony in The Tourist!

The second day, we walked around some more, had as much pasta and gelato as humanly possible, and took one very expensive ride on a gondola.  It was short, but something that I was glad to experience! 

Santa Maria della Salute

Gondola Ride!

We left Sunday morning out of Venice-Treviso Airport.  The only memorable thing about that airport was the reclining waiting chairs.  Me gusta.  Or the Italian version of me gusta.  Oh and the fact that my bag was chosen to be randomly searched.  Everything was taken out, moved around.  No me gusta.  I was not a happy camper.  But we made it to the plane, the return of RyanAir!  And flew back into Stansted and for the first time ever, we got home at a time that public transportation was still open!  Good move.  Overall, I enjoyed the trip! Even though it was very very different.