A Romantic Weekend in Venice

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Okay, so we've all heard of Venice before...supposed to have streets made of water and all that? It doesn't matter what you've read or the pictures you've seen on the internet, Venice is absolutely incredible.

We arrived at Treviso Airport on Friday, August 31st and took the bus into Venice. The bus took us to Piazzale Roma, which is pretty much the only place to park in Venice. Once you leave there all you see is boats and walkers...there are no cars, bicycles, or mopeds in the rest of Venice. We each bought a vaporetto pass for our stay and that was our main mode of transportation for the rest of the weekend. The vaporetto is the water bus...they're huge boats that serve as Venice's public transportation system. Right now there are only three bridges that cross the Canal Grande (the big canal that runs through Venice). If you're not near a bridge you can take a traghetto (the poor man's gondola) for 50 cents to the other side. A regular gondola ride, complete with cushy chairs in the boat and a Venetian guy in a striped shirt, is much more expensive and very touristy. Water taxis are also pricey, although not as much as the gondola rides, so we stuck with the water bus for the weekend.

Venice's streets are very mazelike, we discovered pretty quickly. I highly recommend a good street map if you go and plan on actually finding your way somewhere. We took the water bus from Piazzale Roma to Rialto and followed the directions that we got from our hotel. Luckily, we found it pretty easily and were very happy with the location. We stayed at Ca' Residenza San Marco, which is located between Ponte di Rialto (the Rialto Bridge) and Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square). It was only a few minutes walk between either one but located down a small side street off the main shopping strip so it was very quiet at night. We loved it 😊 Once we checked in we did as we always do...we dropped our stuff and went exploring. We must have looked like the typical tourists because I think we both walked around with our mouths open for the first day or two that we were there. Piazza San Marco was incredible...it's a huge square with probably a million pidgeons walking around. Vendors sell dried corn for one Euro so everyone can feed the birds. The pidgeons work the tourists too...once you put corn in your hand they fly up and sit on your arms and eat it right out of your hands! I fed the birds twice during our weekend and had them on my head, shoulders, arms, hands, everywhere. Matt fed them once just for the experience but he doesn't get into it like I do 😊

There's no shortage of good food in Venice. We were walking around looking for a place to eat when we walked past a tiny alley and a lit candle at the end caught my eye. There are small piazzas (squares, like gathering areas) all over Italian towns so I waived Matt down the alley to check it out. It was a tiny little piazza that a restaurant used for outdoor dining. It was beautiful and romantic and we decided to eat there. Pictures don't do it justice but the food was really good.

Venice is also known for Carnevale. It precedes Lent and is a time of celebration for Venetians. They get dressed up in costumes and masks and there are parties in every piazza and balls all over the city. Because masks are such an integral part of Carnevale, there are mask shops all over Venice. We found an incredible mask shop, Ca' Macana. They are one of only three shops in Venice that still handmake their masks...everyone else gets them shipped in from China and other places. They and the other two shops are also the ones that supplied the masks for "Eyes Wide Shut" with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. The sign in the window of their shop stating that is actually what caught our eye and we're so glad it did. The woman working in the shop (her name was Martina) was a wealth of information. She told us the stories behind all of the different mask designs and types and gave us a card showing where their other shops were in Venice as well as their workshop. She urged us not to purchase anything that first night but to walk around and see what else was out there before deciding...we loved her immediately 😊 We actually did go and find one of the other shops on Sunday, which actually took us hours to find. I did mention that the streets in Venice are like a maze, right? Anyways, Martina was working there on Sunday and it was wonderful to see a familiar face...and she remembered our names! We asked more questions about the masks at that shop, which was much bigger than the one we had been in Friday night, and ended up each buying a mask from her.

Something else Venice is known for is its Murano glass. One of the islands that make up Venice is Murano, and it's there that they make some very beautiful, and very expensive, glass. We had read before going about the glass and had planned on buying some but went into sticker shock once we got there. Wow is it expensive! We'd still like to get some but that's the nice thing about living in Europe...it's so easy to go back when we have the money to get what we want. We bought some trinkets made of Murano glass to hold us over though and those work for us just fine.

Saturday, our second day, we spent in Verona, which I'm actually going to talk about in a different post. For the rest of the weekend we just walked around and explored. We took a ton of pictures and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. I really want to go back for Carnevale this year, if at all possible. If not this year then definitely next year. I saw some of the costumes that they have on display in the windows and would love to dress up in a Marie Antoinette type costume (including the wig), wear a gorgeous mask and go to a ball.

I highly recommend Venice to anyone but especially for couples. I'm glad that Matt and I did it just ourselves this trip...it's so much more romantic that way. Did I mention that Martina (the mask girl) thought we were newlyweds?

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Photos

Dinner
Here's where we ate dinner that first night.

Feeding the Pidgeons
This is the first time I fed the pidgeons. With it being evening, there weren't quite as many as during the day, we later discovered.

Trying on Masks
Here's Matt trying on a very interesting mask in Ca' Macana.

Midnight Snack
Matt having a bedtime ice cream sundae in Piazza San Marco

Feeding the Pidgeons...Again
Here I am feeding the pidgeons again. They're a little braver this time!

Comments

[Megan]

Your so Brave!
Oh my god Mandi, I can't believe you let those flying rats touch you!! You are so brave, I ran away whenever one came near me, just in case they left a suprise!! I got out of Italy unscathed by the pigeons, and then one single bird let one drop in Zurich! I was not happy!

[mnmhull]

Pigeon's Revenge
That's why you got nailed then...because you didn't feed them in Venice :) Pigeons talk, you know lol.