Bits and Bytes of life...: Europe Trip Day 5

Woke up in the morning with a bad headache as I could not sleep on the train as we didn't get reservation for sleeping. We had to sit all night in spite of having Eurail first class pass. One of the things that we didn't like about the Eurail system was that even with the pass you need to make reservations and pay money for lot of the high speed trains. Though the reservation cost is much higher without the eurail pass. Also if you buy a global pass the only option is to get the first class pass but on lot of popular high speed routes the first class compartment is usually fully booked so you need to sit in second class. Anyway, we reached Venice around 10 am.

After seeing Venice in lots of movies we were totally looking forward to our day in the romantic city of Venice. As we exited from the train station in Venice we saw the huge Grand canal and numerous gondolas. It reminded us of Venetian at Las Vegas. The sight was mesmerizing.

The Grand Canal

Rialto bridge in the background

We caught the vaporreti which is the public bus/ferry which people use to get around the islands. Venice has more than 100 small islands which are all connected by foot bridges. We were staying at Hotel Rio which was centrally located in the San Marco island and was a stone's throw away from the major attractions. However as we entered our room we realized that except for the location there was nothing impressive about the facilities here. There was barely any room to move and no breakfast. But Venice is an expensive place so we expected to pay little bit higher price for this location. As always we dropped off our bags and headed out.

So once you are in Italy you have to explore and eat all the yummylicious food. We grabbed a table at a small bistro and ordered some paninis and coffee. The paninis were delicious. We were happy and ready for the sight seeing.

Check out the gondolas

We headed out to see the famous St. Mark's Basilica. This is a huge beautiful cathedral which is located near Piazza San Marco and was a symbol of Venetian power and wealth in old times as was visible from the opulent design and architecture. As expected there was a huge line with tourists trying to beat the heat with gelatos. However Rick Steve's book mentioned that if we checked in our day pack and got a luggage ticket then we could show the ticket and enter directly. So we did exactly that. Rick Steve's book definitely has such useful tips and tricks for European travel. We felt sorry for the tourists who were wasting their time and energy standing in the line. The basilica was beautiful from inside with all the adornments and artistic works.

Near the basicilica

Inside the beautiful basicilica

It was a very hot day in Venice so we stopped by a gelataria to grab some gelatos. As you would know Italy is famous for its gelatos. So this was just a beginning of our gelato eating experience in Italy. They have so many flavors so each of us picked up different flavors so that we could sample a variety of flavors. We loved the gelatos and were definitely going to miss them in Seattle.

Next we headed to the famous Rialto bridge which is the biggest bridge on the island. We grabbed some Italian lunch here and enjoyed the views from the bridge.

Another view of Rialto bridge

Then we just strolled around the narrow cobbled streets which were filled with tourists. People were enjoying gelatos, taking pictures, feeding the pigeons, riding the gondolas and just having fun.

Beautiful narrow streets

Mask shop

At night the temperature cooled down a bit and we got some respite from the burning heat. No amount of sunscreen could protect us from getting tanned. We headed out the St. Marco's Piazza. Piazza is basically a square which is ideal for gathering and just hanging out. Wish there were some piazzas in Seattle too. There are a bunch of huge restaurants and hotels located near the piazza. Some hotels had live band playing beautiful music which made the atmosphere so romantic. You can order few glasses of wine and just enjoy the music and atmosphere. We just sat there and enjoyed till late in the night before we called it a day.