The Travelpod was written by Lizzie on April 1. All the italics are from the Travelpod blog. All the normal text is my new commentary.
We landed in Venice (at 11 am their time), headed through customs and got our bags. We grabbed our bus tickets only to miss the bus by about 2.5 seconds. 30 minutes later when the next bus came by we were better prepared, had a map of where our hotel was and made some new friends with two UK girls.
We got on the bus (front row of course for Lizzie) and headed to Venice. It was not very picturesque from the airport, down the bridge and into the car park. We did get to drive next to the train tracks that lead into Venice:
The bus dropped us off at the last point of where vehicles are allowed in Venice. (Side Note:I was surprised at how rural the Venice airport was. There was lots of green space and open land. Clearly, Venice is not like that at all. I expected the whole area to be super built up.)
We got off the bus carrying our two bags each and tried to find the hotel.
We went over two bridges and found our hotel after a bit of hunting. I really made this sound easy with this little comment. It is VERY hard to find things in Venice. We walked around the block quite a few times rolling our bags over and over bridges. Finally, when we figured it out, we realized we had passed it about 4 times. Typical.
We walked in to the small hotel recommended by the Hedlunds and were greeted by two large black dogs. 
They were quite friendly and so was their owner who checked us into the hotel. We were complementary upgraded to a suite at no extra charge AND it has a canal view! It is really nice. 
We unpacked a bit and I refreshed. (While Doug took a short nap. ha.) We headed out to see Venice! As it was early afternoon, and we had plenty to see! Our hotel is near the Vaparetto line so we hopped on for our first real view of Venice. The Vaparetto is Venice’s public transportation. 
We listened to Rick Steve's audio tour of the Grand Canal and soaked in the view. Venice is beautiful and quite unique.
This video was from the beginning of the ride:
This video is a bit longer and shows the famous Rialto bridge that crosses the grand canal. Enjoy!
We hopped off of Vaparetto at St. Mark's Square and meandered around.
The famous bridge of sighs:
The winged lion has become one of my favorite symbols since this trip – mainly since this city.
Then we got lost and lost again and then lost some more. The "streets" of Venice and windy, end abruptly and do some crazy things. I cannot stress this enough. The “roads” are more like alleys and you can never tell when they might dead end around a curve. It is save to say there are zero straight streets in Venice. Our plan was to walk back to the hotel and grab lunch on the way.
We ate at an open air restaurant and enjoyed the sights.
Then Doug got gelato (the only gelato we did not photograph) and we slowly found our way back to the hotel.
We headed up to the terrace to relax and enjoy the setting sun.
Doug kept falling asleep in the chair while I blogged so we decided to head down to the room for a nap.
Sweet, wonderful sleep. It was fabulous as we had been awake for about 27 hours straight. We woke up from our amazing nap and headed back out to see Venice at night.
We walked the Grand Canal for a bit, found more gelato for Doug and got some steps. It was lovely.
They weather today was amazing! It was sunny with a high of 65ish. Just perfect. Tonight was a bit cooler, but was fine with a light jacket. The one thing I did not expect was the quantity of Dog roaming all over this city - some on leashes, some not. They are seriously everywhere. I was prepared for the canals, crowds, foods, but not the puppies. What a great surprise.
Now we are back in the room and have a full day ahead of us. Time to hit the hay. Love to you all!!
This day felt about 3 days long because of the time difference. Overall, it was great. Looking back, this was one of my favorite days.
It was this day (or the next) that I realized my curling iron was 110v only. It would not work in Italy. Panic. Then I realized my toothbrush charger was 110v only too! NOoooo! We started a “bag of broken dreams” where the things we should not have brought around the world with us or they did not work (curling iron and toothbrush charger) would live. It was kind of funny. Doug or I would ask randomly where the “bag of broken dreams” was to put some other random item in it.
Lizzie’s Fitbit step count: 18,167
Doug’s Fitbit step count: 24,397
Love and Hugs, Lizzie
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