Planes, Trains and…Vaporettos

Getting Here is Half the Fun (not really)

After 40 days and 40 nights of travel, I finally made it to Venice. Ok, since it’s not 1765, maybe it just felt that long. In reality, it was about 13.5 hours from the time the plane’s wheels left the ground to my feet hitting the doorway of my hotel room. I was lucky, both of my flights were on time, and I had no trouble connecting at Heathrow. In a little bit of irony, my enormous plane landed at gate 538, and then I took a shuttle and a bunch of escalators to the main terminal, and then another shuttle and some more escalators to my gate, which ended up being 539. A whole lot of walking to get right back where I started! I’m sure there’s a metaphor for life in there somewhere, but I was too tired to care. I managed to sleep most of the 2 hour flight to Venice, waking up briefly to get a look at the snow-covered Alps as we flew over them.

I had previously booked a vaporetto shuttle to my hotel, and this was one of those times I can pat myself on the back for all my crazy planning. I had bought my ticket in advance and written down exactly where to go and when the shuttle left, so I didn’t have to engage my tired brain at all and could just walk really fast and follow the blue signs to juuust make the 1pm shuttle. It was a bit of a long trip (90 minutes), so as exciting as it was to finally be on the canals of Venice, I may have dozed off once or twice.

I’m staying at the Belle Arti, which I was pleased to discover/remember is in the quiet and somewhat residential Dorsoduro neighborhood. It’s about a 15 minute walk or 3 vapporetto stops from St. Mark’s Square, the main tourist attraction in Venice. I have a couple priorities when I’m selecting a hotel – price (I’m a cheapskate), location (close to a city center to save sightseeing time), and provides breakfast (one meal I don’t have to make a decision about…and pay for). This places checks all 3 boxes and is actually very nice, so I’m happy to call it home for 5 nights.

Side note: their breakfast – standard continental with breads, cheeses, cereal, and fruit – had PEACH HALVES for the fruit. Some of you reading this know of my obsession with peaches, which I acquired on the two Celebrity cruises I’ve taken and has continued since my last one. I love these things so much, my coworkers gave me a can as a going away gift. Needless to say, this was an excellent start to the day. Even if this morning’s attempt at using my limited Italian (una forchetta, per favore?) was met with a blank stare.

Anyway, one of the things that helps me to get settled and fight jet lag is taking a nap when I arrive in Europe. Some people think this is the absolute worst thing a person can do, but I’ve found a short 60-90 minute nap will give me enough energy to make it to a normal bedtime. After my nap, I did what any normal human would do, and I got myself a GELATO. Lemon flavored is my favorite, and Venice did not disappoint.

Out and About in Venice

About 5 minutes after I left my hotel room, I realized I absolutely adore Venice. It’s full of gorgeous, interesting old architecture; it’s on the water; it has skinny little alleys that are actually considered streets; an amazing history; and a ton of cute shops. I spent yesterday evening cruising the Grand Canal on a vaporetto and listening to an audioguide from Rick Steves telling a little history of some of the Grand Canal buildings (I’m not getting kickbacks from Rick for plugging his guidebooks, I swear – though that’s not a bad idea…). I ended my evening with some pasta, bruschetta, and a glass of wine. Not a bad start to my trip!

Today, after stuffing myself with some delicious peaches, I headed out for some more sightseeing. I had a guided tour of the Doge’s Palace pre-booked as well as a skip the line ticket for St. Mark’s Basilica (and of course there was no line that needed skipping). The Doge, while known mostly as a dog meme today, was actually the elected leader of major Italian city-states like Venice. He was a pretty powerful guy and had a pretty badass palace built for him and all his successors. St. Mark’s is full of gorgeous mosaics pretty much covering the entire cathedral. I had planned to check out some art museums after that, but the weather was nice today and is supposed to be less nice tomorrow, so I spent the afternoon shopping/wandering. Italy is full of really inexpensive leather, and you can smell the shops before you even walk up to them. I’m fairly certain I’m going to come home with 10 leather purses – they’re only like €15 each, it’s a crime NOT to buy them!

I’ll post more pictures to my Instagram, and I’ll put all of the pictures I’ve taken on Facebook with detailed captions – I’ll make those public so you don’t have to be friends with me to see them. Hopefully, I can stick with it enough to do this for the whole trip. But now, it’s time for more pasta and gelato!