We arrived in Venice early in the day. As we walked off the train neither one of us could really wrap out heads around actually being here. We were advised to invest in a map, so getting one at the closest stand was our number one priority. After doing so we had made our way to our hostel. It was located in a nice area surrounded by everything we planned to visit while in Venice. That day we spent walking along the street and random alleys, learning our way around the place. The nice thing about Venice is that you can see almost all of its main sights from the plaza San Marco. This was one of the biggest attractions like the Bridge of Sighs, which Michelle and I were actually able to see from the inside! This is a very historic bridge which connects the New Prison to the interrogation rooms in the Doge's Palace. The view we saw while crossing the bridge was supposed to be the last thing criminals saw before entering their cells. The jail part was perhaps our favorite aspect of the Doge's Palace. This building is said to have one of he biggest rooms in all of Europe, which Mich and I actually had kind of a hard time believing.
We spent a lot of time eating there. We seriously ate anything and everything that looked even remotely delicious! Day one we had discovered a small bakery which made by far the most amazing fruit tarts! We loved it so much that we made sure to go back for seconds. Venice also had some of the best chocolate croissants! I have no idea how we managed to stumble upon this little coffee shop/ bakery thing, but oh how glad I was that we did! The coffee of course was also amazing!
All in all Venice was absolutely beautiful and should be visited by anyone traveling through Italy. It's crazy to think that there are no cars inside the actual city and the only form of transportation are boats on water. One evening Michelle and I ordered out dinner to go, grabbed some wine and the store next to the restaurant, and enjoyed a relaxing dinner right on a street next to the water. As we ate, water taxis and gondolas with live music past on by. It was a perfect ending to a long day of walking. Next stop was on to Florence! Ah I could hardly wait! But saying goodbye to Venice was not easy... At this point forward leaving was incredibly difficult.