when getting ready to come over to italy, i knew venice was one of the cities i wanted to visit. i have always heard so many great things about it, and it may be under water one day! so i had to go while i had the chance!
i traveled with three of my friends... Mary Cate, Megan, and Elizabeth. it was just the four of us and we had such a nice and relaxing time. we arrived in Venice around 8:30am Friday, so we had the whole day ahead of us! we went to the hotel we orininally booked to check in and put our luggage away, but there was some confusion [still not sure about what] so they told us to come back at 2. so we left ready to explore Venice!
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| our first stop was Rialto Bridge |
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Elizabeth and Me on the bridge!
this sweet guy who had a VERY nice camera took a few pictures of us and emailed them to me! |
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| we got so lucky with the weather! it was beautiful the whole weekend! |
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| they had such cool masks everywhere! i got a cheap 5 euro one... i felt like i had to haha |
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| mary cate, me, megan, and elizabeth |
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| its so cool how water is their streets! |
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| St. Mark's Square |
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| so many pigeons! |
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| we loved the markets on the side of the streets! we spent so much time just pondering around and looking! |
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we had a fabulous lunch along the grand canal...
and we got free drinks!! :) |
after lunch, we went back to the original hotel i had booked. we walked in and the lady says, "are you the girls who are moving to the other hotel?". we just looked at each other wide eyed and very confused. then she proceeds to tell us something happened with our reservation, so we are moving you to another hotel. considering the look we have had on trips, we were very skeptical and worried about what this hotel may be. the one i had booked was nice and in a central location. so we gather our stuff and the lady leads us to the second hotel, and it was great! it was just a block away form the first, and this one was right on the Grand Canal! it was fabulous!! and we got free breakfast every morning. it was great a nice upgrade and we paid the same price!
once we checked in and got settlted we went back out into Venice. we did not have any plans for this trip, so we just did whatever! it was so great not having a schedule or rushing to see everything. it was a very relaxing weekend!
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| view of the Accademia Bridge |
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Me and Mary Cate went into the Guggenheim Museum...
I was suppose to find Melissa Lynn a poem... but never found it :(
sorry Melissa Lynn! |
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| we got to watch a beautiful sunset on our gondola ride :) |
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| we enjoyed our gondola ride with some wine! |
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| the view out of our hotel! |
on saturday we decided to go to Murano, the Glass Island!
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we saw a glass blowing demonstration for 3 euro...
so worth it! |
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| blowing the glass |
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| sculpting the glass |
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the final product!
it about 5 minutes for him to make this! |
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| there so many glass shops along the island! |
for lunch, me and megan wanted seafood so we split from the other two girls and found this nice little place along the river. it was such a beautiful day so we sat outside, and the tables are really close. we start talking, and the couple next to us charmed in and said "it's so nice to hear Americans talk!" we started talking with them and they are from D.C. and are living in Paris because of his job. they have been living in Paris for 2 years now. we talked to them the rest of our lunch. i love meeting people from America and being able to talk to them and hear why they are over here- everyone has different stories! the couple ended up treating us to a desert :)
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| me and megan |
once we got back to the main islands, we just started exploring and walking around different little islands [there are so many!] we came across the great antique market where spent about an hour just pondering around! i got two great antique necklaces, mary got great earrings, elizabeth got a belt, and megan got a necklace... and they were all antique!!
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| they had everything! |
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| the bridge at night :) |
for our last night, we went to dinner and after we came across this hut that was on one of the streets that had so much fresh fruit they put in drinks, crepes, smoothies, yogurt...the manager drew us in by giving us free samples of some of the drinks they had and they were DELICIOUS! so we sat down and ordered some crepes [nutella with fresh strawberries]. we got to talking to the manager- she is 26, from Mexico, she has been living in Venice for two years now, know french, spanish, italian, and english [all perfectly], and is dating an Italian living in Rome. her life is so fun, and she is just enjoying it! she gave us each a free yogurt with fresh fruit, and a discount on a drink! we really liked her :) she is coming to Rome to visit her boyfriend, so she found us on facebook and we can hopefully meet up when she comes!! traveling is so fun, we meet so many people and i love it!!
our flight left sunday morning around 10:30 am, so we had to leave early sunday. venice is just a neat place to visit!
