Italy Part I - Venice

Now that I'm getting caught up with my clients photos I thought I'd share a little bit from our trip with you all today!

We started our trip in Venice and I was so excited when we landed. To be honest, I wasn't really sure what to expect as far as how we would get from the airport to Venice and here's my answer:

This is actually the dock you board your boats from. They call them "Vaporetos". Now, please help me out, doesn't the sign clearly say to board from platform 1 if you want to go to Rialto? Well, we thought so, so we waited for a while for our boat to come. Three other boats came and left until I decided to ask in my splendid Italian when would our boat arrive. The guy asked me where we wanted to go and I said Rialto, he told me we needed to go to platform 3. As I pointed to the sign and said platform 1 says Rialto, platform 3 doesn't, he just shrugged his shoulders and pointed me to platform 3 again. As we were making ourselves comfortable and waiting on platform 3, another guy came by and told me it would be 1 hr and 15 min before the next boat came and that we were better off boarding the boat from platform 2 and just walking about 15 minutes to our destination. I should've known this was just the first sign that our trip would turn out to be quite an adventure!

Once we got off our vaporeto (from platform 2!), we made  our way through the cute little streets and bridges and I really couldn't care less that we were lost because every corner we turned was more charming and full of character than the one before. 

We finally made it to our hotel and here's a view from our window:

And our room:

Our first self-portrait of the trip, which made me realize they were somewhat pointless since you can't really tell where we are :). I only brought one lens with me and this was the widest I could get so we kind of gave up on trying to get pictures together. But I still love it and it brings back good memories!

The gondolas were so pretty!

Saint Mark's Square:

I couldn't believe all the people trying to get the pigeons to land on them so they could take a picture. Apparently I'm the only one who thinks that a pigeon is a pigeon regardless of the country I am in. And pigeons are gross and I'm pretty sure they carry diseases (even the Italian ones).

I was completely enamored with Venice by the second day and I was beginning to dream about living there, until I realized I would have to hang my laundry outside, including my underwear right outside my window! No, thank you. I love America and all its washers and dryers:

There I am! So happy to be there (as a tourist)! And yes, I know I'm lame for wearing the gondolier-stripped-shirt in Venice, but I just couldn't resist.

Some of my favorite scenes from around town:

This was our last night in Venice and we went to St. Mark's Square to see the dueling bands and dance under the stars. It was just as romantic as Rick Steves claimed it was going to be. Thanks, Rick! This is the band we were cheering for:
Up next is Florence!