Day twelve: Venice, Italy

Note to self: if you ever book an overnight train again, pay the difference for a sleeper or couchette.. Do NOT settle for the cheap seats (not even that cheap). 

We figured we would ge the most out of our time by booking an eight hour overnight train from Munich to Venice. We were in a seated compartment with six seats all facing each other. This fabulous idea resulted in kankles (swollen ankles) and little to no sleep. No need to focus on how terrible that was because we are finally in Italy! Time to enjoy Venice! 

These babies fixed all our problems as soon as we arrived in Venice. Handle Italian espresso with caution.

Obviously focusing very hard. It was time to figure out yet another type of public transportation, water taxis. Now that's a different monster!

Pictures do it no justice. Venice looks like a movie scene. The apartments and little alley ways  are quaint and gorgeous.

Venice will be our first hotel stay all trip,

therefore we were ecstatic upon arrival at Hotel Belle Arti. We finally made it at around 10 a.m. My uncle was generous enough to help us find this place. Belle Arti was so cute that we just wanted to hang around all day! 

We couldn't check in until 1:30 p.m. So we stored our luggage at the hotel and headed out to explore the island. We did a lot of window shopping and some real shopping at the local H&M (need to get ready for Milan and Paris!). The thing to do in Venice is to get up early to roam the streets in the morning before everywhere gets packed. When we decided it was time to get away from all the crowds and fill our bellies, we sat down at a table outside of a cute restaurant. 

First Italian meal, yes please! Insalata caprese, pizza, and a 1/2 liter of house white wine. Heaven.

After spending a cute amount of money on that we decided it was time to get to a market to buy snacks for later or else we would go broke.

Obviously we had to buy these "juice boxes".

It was wonderful to finally be able to get dressed and feel girly again! We've been a sweaty stinky mess up until now. That's unacceptable in Italy, we had to dress the part.

Been waiting two whole weeks to eat Italian gelato. Well worth the wait!

Saint Mark's Basilica, gorgeous. 

Saint Mark's Campanile.

 

We had to chase pigeons away to get this shot. Didn't help that street merchants kept coming up to us with handfuls of rice. We DO NOT want to feed the birds, ever. Ew.

We ended our day back at the courtyard of our awesome hotel. We did a little bit of planning while enjoying some good Italian wine we got at the market. 

Cheers!