Honeymoon Day 7 (Florence/Venice)

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It rained in Florence last night, so we took it pretty easy. We got up, got ready, and got a quick bite to eat. After our snack, we headed to the train station. About a 90 minute train ride later, we arrived in Venice. My first impression this time around is that it's so much more picturesque than I remembered it. I knew it was beautiful, but wow! I just didn't remember it being this beautiful.

We got on the Vaporetto and headed over to our hotel that was about a block or so away from the Ponte Rialto. If any of you plan on going to Venice soon, I highly suggest staying in this area. It's close enough to get to St. Mark's square within a 5-10 minute walk, but close enough to the less touristy parts of Venice. Also, the service in our hotel was amazing. Not only was the lady at the desk really sweet, but she also spent 10 minutes going over recommended sights, off the beaten path stuff to do, restaurants that she really likes, etc. More to come on that later.

Once we checked in to the hotel at about 3pm or so, we headed over to St. Mark's Square to check out the basilica. On the way, we stumbled across a couple of less well known churches. However, none of them compared to St. Mark's Basilica. Unfortunately, the facade of St. Mark's had some scaffolding on it, so we didn't get the full effect. However, the mosaics inside with gold leaf (I'm assuming) more than made up for it. We also checked out the couple side exhibits in the basilica. However, when we went to check out the museum, it was too late. They close at about 4:45pm. Oh well, maybe we'll check it out tomorrow.

After St. Mark's, we soaked in the ambience of St. Mark's square, explored a few neighborhood's, etc. We then went back to the hotel for a quick respite. After freshening up, we decided to try the restaurant our concierge recommended. It was less than a 1 minute walk away from the hotel. Across from the restaurant, we found a great pub called Devil's Forest Pub. They had Heffeweizen beer, drinks that Katie liked, and a good atmosphere. The wait for the restaurant (Da Mamo) we wanted was about an hour. While we waited in line, we met a really nice older couple from Detroit. We chatted with them for a bit. The gentleman was also nice enough to go to the pub and buy all of us a round of drinks. That definitely made the wait go by much quicker. I had a great pasta dish and Katie had an amazing Chicken Parm with the most amazing french fries. That was literally the best meal I've had in a while. It was fresh and absolutely delicious!

After dinner we explored for a while and walked in and out of random small streets. By this time it was about 11 or 12 at night, so we were getting a little tired so we went back to the hotel room to hang out. Can't wait to see what else Venice has to offer!

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