Italy Recap: Venice
Whew! It has been a while since I have last posted. Between moving, starting grad school, and a new job on top of regular life, I have struggled to find time to get on here and post in the past year. Then, in true type A, socially uncomfortable fashion, I felt like it would be weird to jump back in like I had never left. It never felt like the right time, until I realized that there never is a right time for this. I am lucky that this is a hobby for me, so I hope everyone can understand why it has been nearly a full year since I have updated the site. I hope to be posting a lot more in the upcoming year, we have several exciting things coming up! However, we also had a ton of fun adventures this year too that I have a backlog of to catch up on. So stay tuned for all the fun details :)
The day after Christmas last year, I tested positive for COVID. It really took a toll, and I did not feel back to my regular self until late in January. In February, I went to Mexico with a dear friend from college for my birthday (more to come on that soon), and then in March, Kooper and I went to Italy for his birthday. We had the greatest time! I wanted to break down an Italy recap for you in case you are planning a trip yourself starting with our time in Venice!
Day 1
We live in Little Rock, so getting anywhere is quite the task since we do not live near an international airport. We flew United from Little Rock -> Chicago -> Frankfurt -> Venice. We left around lunch time on Feb. 28th and landed in Venice around 2:00 pm Venice time on March 1st. We immediately hit the ground running! Getting to the airport is only half the battle, make sure you prepare for how to get from the airport to Venice itself. We chose to take a public water bus (vaporetto) which is the cheapest option (around 14 Euros pp for a 75 min pass - basically one way). If you are looking to visit Lido, Murano and Burano while there, you can also purchase a day pass that allows you to utilize the water bus system around all four of these locations for 33 Euros pp, or you can purchase a 2 day pass for all of these as well for 44 Euros pp. This is essentially public transportation around Venice, and it is the cheapest option! The quickest and most scenic option is taking a water taxi, which sounds exactly like what it is - a floating taxi. Rather than stopping at every port stop in a water bus with other passengers like we did, you can go straight to your destination with only the passengers you are traveling with. These cost between 105-135 Euros from the airport to the city center - way pricier!
Jetlagged and waiting on our water bus
Once we got into the city center, it was time to find our hotel. We had heard that Venice was quite the maze, but we were not prepared for how crazy that maze was. To add to the confusion of finding our way around, carnival was going on the same weekend, so there were tons of people in costumes everywhere. Eventually, we had to admit defeat and take our phones off of airplane mode to GPS our way to the hotel. We stayed at the Firenze hotel. The location was amazing, it is situated right in the heart of luxury shopping. We were surrounded by Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Hermès, Dior, Cartier, Prada, Bottega Veneta… the list goes on and on. The rooms were quite small, and very old Italian vibes, but we only were there to sleep as we were so busy throughout the day. Breakfast was included (we didn’t try it, but it was an option), and there was a super cute rooftop garden bar. If you are looking for a place to spread out with your family and spend time watching TV and relaxing, this isn’t the place for you. But if you are looking for somewhere to sleep and shower that is in the heart of the city and close to everything, this was perfect! Once we checked into our hotel, and got settled, it was time for dinner. We took a quick stroll around the city and just popped into a place that caught our eye (it was nothing special - I don’t even remember the name), but we had a spicy penne pasta and a pizza and split both!
We walked all around the city just taking it all in after dinner, and grabbed cannoli’s for dessert!
After a long day of traveling, exploring, and eating, we went back to the hotel so that we could get a good night’s rest and be ready for the next day. One thing we forgot… most European hotels do not have A/C. We called down about how hot the room was. The concierge recommended that we crack the window open to get some cool air in as it was still cold outside, this felt AMAZING…. until the next morning when we woke up to our ceiling being covered in mosquitos and Kooper’s face covered in bites. Regardless of the cold weather, Venice is still built on water aka a magnet for mosquitos year round, so be warned, haha!
Day 2
Day 2, we were excited to explore the city some more. When Kooper and I go on international trips, we are incredibly intentional with our time. For example, when people think of Venice - everyone thinks of Gondola rides and the museums like St. Mark’s Basilica and Doge’s Palace, these things were not important to us. There were other museums and attractions that were more appealing to us later on in the trip that we preferred, so we chose to not do any of these in Venice. *For reference: Gondola rides are expensive, depending on the time of day. If you go before sunset during the day, it costs around 80 Euros, during and after sunset, it costs 100 Euros or more*
Despite not choosing to go visit the museums in Venice, we did enjoy looking at them from the outside :)
We walked around until we were ready for breakfast, which was of course, coffee and croissants. We stopped at Farini, which was so yummy!
After breakfast, we were on the hunt for a photo spot where the canal traffic runs in both directions that we had seen on a Youtube video… we searched for a long time, and then thought we found the place and took photos there like it was the coolest spot in the world, we were shocked it was not more crowded, we later learned it was not the right spot lol but we still enjoyed our time exploring!
Next up, we were off to find lunch. We went to a popular hole in the wall local spot called Dal Moros. They make all of their pasta fresh and have several signature sauces and toppings to choose from. It is made to order and given to you in a super hot take out container so you can walk around while you are eating, there is no indoor seating for this one, but boy is it yummy. I got a mushroom cream sauce over penne, and Kooper got a pesto spaghetti. Both were incredible!
After lunch we made our way over to the Libreria Acqua Alta, an incredibly cool library. Since Venice is built on the water, they anticipate flooding and store their books in bathtubs, gondolas, and other floating basins to ensure the books do not get wet and ruin. It has such a fun atmosphere and is a great place to look for souvenirs for anyone back home you are buying for. The store feels really whimsical and has lots of resident cats to pet and love on while you shop - aka a dream!
We stopped for a quick dessert at a cafe and shared a pistachio cheesecake, and then went back to the hotel to freshen up for dinner.
Kooper had done a lot of research about where to eat and he SWORE that he knew where to go. We ended up at a place called Ristorante El Piazza. The first red flag, was that someone was outside the restaurant basically begging people to come in. Kooper’s philosophy is “if they have to beg for customers, there’s a reason”. However, he SWORE this was THE place to go. So in we went… to a fully empty restaurant. I told him there was no way this was correct, but he ordered mussels as an appetizer and started to google while we waited. Turns out, THE place to be is actually called Ristorante La Piazza. The “La” and the “El” actually do represent a significant difference! After Kooper finished his mussels, we left and walked down the street to the correct restaurant. We shared the mushroom tortellini (basically ravioli) with cream sauce and it was TO. DIE. FOR.
The restaurant gave us a lemon sorbet to finish off the evening, but we still needed a littleeee bit more to call it a day! We went in search of the best gelato we could find, and happened upon SUSO Gelato. It was a great way to wrap up the trip to Venice!
Last Minute in Venice
Final thing I will say… we had a pre booked train ticket to leave Venice and head to Florence the following morning (around $22 USD pp). The issue was, we did not prebook our water bus or taxi from the city center to the train station. I would do this in advance and make sure you are comfortable with pick up and drop off locations - exactly where to be and at what time. Kooper and I were not prepared. This meant the morning we left, we missed the water bus and had to run MILES from the city center to the train station to make it on time. This involved carrying all of our luggage over all of the little arched staircases across the canals to get there. It was BRUTAL. But what an experience, ha - definitely one we will never forget :)
What I wore
