Venice!

First few days in Italy in the rearview mirror

Day	Jarod (total steps)	Ariel (total steps)	Difference
Oct. 11	21,853	27,150	21.62%
Oct. 12	9,617	11,733	19.82%

Based on this data, we can see that Ariel takes 20% more steps than Jarod on average

After approximately 24 hours of travel we arrived in Florence on Oct. 10th. Once we had taxied to our hotel, we had just about enough energy for a late gelato stop (aka dinner) to ensure we could actually stay awake until a somewhat reasonable time (aka 9:30pm), before crashing and preparing for an early train out the next morning for a day and a half in Venice.

Per the stats above, Ariel and I did our best to beat back our jet lag by staying on our feet as much as we possibly could on Oct. 11th. After we dropped our bags at our hotel (which ended up being a great little spot we would recommend - Hotel Firenze) we promptly wandered to Saint Mark’s Square and didn’t try too hard to figure out exactly where we were going.

After managing to get sufficiently lost that we thought we had seen most of the San Marco and Rialto areas, it was about time for a guided tour of St. Mark’s Basilica. Thanks especially to Bonnie and Peter (Ariel’s parents) for my birthday gift this year, which was for Context Travel tours! Our guide was great, and we got some great recommendations for food and additional things to do while he showed us around the Basilica and surrounding areas.

For dinner we took a recommendation from our hotel concierge and went to Ostaria da Rioba. Who knew that freshly made squid ink risotto had the bonus effect of temporary spooky black teeth-and-lip staining? We didn’t until halfway through dinner, and I fear for the white cloth napkins they gave us to use. Although not too much - they did give us the napkins after all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. A long vaporetto (water taxi down the Grande Canale) ride back to the hotel with the city lit up around us and a late night gelato later and we were crashed in our hotel, our >20,000 steps each having managed to keep us well awake for the day.

The next morning (this morning) after a lovely breakfast at the hotel, we took a walk around through the Doge’s Palace. I’ve never seen so many ceiling paintings! As well as the largest canvas painting in the world, and one of the largest rooms in Europe. We saw someone who admitted they were claustrophobic opt into and subsequently run past us during a three story optional section exploring the prisons at the palace. And, we did a quick lap through the “most beautiful bookstore in the world,” which might have also been the most crowded bookstore in the world, and which was full of cat related books and postcards and contained zero cats. We saw no cats and probably twenty dogs in all our time in Venice, so I’m not quite sure where the cat obsession came from.

Wrapping up the day, we made our way slowly back to our hotel to pick up our luggage while grabbing some coffee and cichetti (Venitian version of tapas) along the way. We stopped through a few small sculpture gardens, and walked about a mile or so down and back along the south-eastern side of the island. And now, we’re on the train back to Florence for a much longer stint - four days in the same hotel there, giving us a chance to settle in a bit more and really explore the city there.

One day was definitely a short amount of time to spend in Venice. We got to see the most famous stuff, but I think we ended up missing entire portions of the city. We covered Saint Mark’s pretty well, as well as the areas around Rialto, but I’m sure there’s loads we missed. Two days might’ve been perfect. But, three might’ve been a lot in the fairly big crowds that started really arriving on Saturday around mid-morning. I can only imagine the height of tourist season when the island is even more packed with visitors - eesh.

And so, we now have four days to see as much of Florence as we can! There’ll be a lot to take in, but I’m excited to not have to be changing hotels for the next few days.

Here are some other trips stats that’ll give you an additional peek into how we are enjoying ourselves:

Stats

Running total of Lactaid pills consumed: 5

Running total of souvenirs purchased: 2

Running total of Spritzes drunk: 2