We all flooded in the canal. Okay, so we didn’t…
Yet another early start this morning in Florence~ What’s the point in unpacking when we leave for a new city the next day.
Today we’re headed to the floating city, Venezia. We had breakfast and boarded our bus all before 9AM and then slept until we got to the rest stop.
Our day in Venice consisted of another guided tour. This was where we’d learned about the person and the origins of the game Marco Polo. He became blind in the last years of his life.
We had some time to explore and get lunch, but we all really had to use the bathroom again. In a desperate attempt to find a restroom we just settled with a restaurant only to choose the cheapest food items so we can use the bathroom. I got a side salad and the spritz which wasn’t too bad. It was a little bitter, but I like orange scented drinks.
We finally met up for our guided tour and then afterwards got to do one of the most touristy activities~ a gondola ride. On our tour we were told that most gondoliers are men due to their inherently sexist society. There is apparently only one woman gondolier.
The gondola ride was really relaxing (for me at least) and it was the best part of our time in Venice. While on the water, we passed one of the many bridges and I compared Matteo giving us cash doles for dinner to encountering a bridge troll without having to pay or solve a riddle. How much cash dole do you get from the Italian bridge troll? Answer: 15 Euros.
Is it me or was I the solo woman gondolier this whole time??
After the ride was some more free time in Venice for shopping and exploring, but we didn’t end up doing much because we had to use the bathrooms ONCE AGAIN.
I’m convinced that Italians are in a constant state of dehydration, which is why they don’t have public restrooms everywhere. Not wanting to spend another 20 Euros just to use the bathroom, we just walked back to our rendezvous point and waited until it was time to go.
We ended up missing a couple of people and that led to us rushing to get to the train that would take us away to our hotel in Padua, which is where we would be sleeping for the night.
Our tour guide Matteo has this certain walking speed, which we’ll refer to as “Matteo pace,” and anytime he took us to a certain location he would walk super fast, then wait for the rest of us to catch up and it would continue until we reached our final destination.
So we were already running a little late for our train and then Matteo puts us on mega-Matteo pace in order for us to make it to the train station. The best part? There were people protesting on the track, causing the train to be delayed while we were still all on the train. Did Casey and I fall asleep multiple times while on this train? Maybe so…
After an extremely long travel time, we finally reached our hotel. We’d hope that it would be as nice as our hotel in Assisi. It was uh… not? Our room was really small, closet-sized and poorly ventilated, but it served its purpose as a place to sleep for the night.
Next stop, Milan. I’ll see you tomorrow~