We left our hotel in Florence this morning around 8:00 to make it to the train station for our train ride to Venice. I slept through most of the bus ride because I woke up sick this morning with a sore throat that eventually included a running nose and fever. (Great start to the day!)
The train station looked a little sketchy, but we made it to Venice after a 20-minute ride. We walked through Venice and took a break for lunch, but I wasn’t all that hungry so I just got a half of a ham sandwich. I walked around to buy some things with Megan, but we didn’t find too much.
After lunch, we met up with our tour guide, Elena who took us around Venice. She had some interesting stories about the city and told us about little secrets of the city. Right after our tour, the whole group went on a romantic gondola ride. It was only a little awkward with six girls in the gondola. It gave us a whole new view of Venice, and it made me feel Italian famous because people kept taking our picture and waving at us. I loved the gondola ride because I will probably never do that again in my life.
We all had some free time to spend in Venice so Hayley, Lauren and I went to a few shops, most of which were out my price range. Then, Matteo power walked us back to the train station so that we wouldn’t miss our train back out of town… by the end, we were all running. We barely made it and then the train stopped at the next stop for what felt like an hour because of protestors on the train tracts.
Our hotel was a 40-minute bus ride away and we were already really late for dinner. When we made it to the hotel, we left everything on the bus so that we could run to dinner. Dinner included bread, pasta with bolognese sauce and walnut pork. I wish I could have enjoyed it more but my throat and taste buds weren’t having it.
Our hotel isn’t really that nice. It seems right now that my room is the only room that doesn’t have a real shower, so I ended up showering in the sink. However, a bad shower is better than no shower at all. I am probably not going to miss this stay for long.
Tomorrow we are set for Milan!