Early in the morning - after lots of hugs and thank you's, uncle Tony drove us to Novara station to board the train that would take us to our next adventure. We arrived in Venice 3.5 hours later and as soon as we stepped outside of the train station - we fell in love with the city! We were so keen to find our hotel, drop our bags off, and head out to explore our new surroundings...little did we realise how complicated that could be!
What was supposed to be a 6 minute walk to the hotel turned into 40 minutes of walking up and down bridge after bridge, and through alley after alley like rats in a maze! I'd like to say I was exhausted doing this in blaring midday heat with a 20kg suitcase, but the truth is - Brendan saw how sooky I was and ended up carrying both suitcases most of the way (I know - he's definitely a keeper!). After giving up on using a map (as they don't seem to include streets they don't think are important) we started asking locals who kept pointing us in the right direction. Once we finally made it to the hotel - we were very pleased with the room. It was decorated in gorgeous Venetian style and was quite spacious and modern.
We dropped our bags off and then headed out to see Venice's sights. We saw The Rialto bridge, ducked into a couple of churches, grabbed some pizza for lunch, visited St. Mark's basilica, the campanile tower and the piazza, took a long walk down the esplanade, and then slowly made our way back home (not before grabbing the most amazing gelato though!).
By the time we got home, poor Brendan was starting to feel really awful as he's been coming down with the flu. We decided not to push it, and so he got some rest while I ducked out to find us a takeaway feast for dinner. I returned with vegetable soup and some pastas which hit the spot and soothed the throat. We called it a night quite early so that Brendan could try to recover for some more sightseeing tomorrow.