Today we said “Ciao!” to the beautiful city of Florence after a wonderful few days. Off to Venice we went!
Our group boarded the bus and headed out to our next adventure this morning. From there, caught the train into Venice as there are no cars in the city.
Once we arrived, we were given a short 45-minute lunch because of the tight schedule our group was on. For me, this meant eating a fresh fruit-cup and a cannoli while sitting on a dock overlooking the water.
Venice is absolutely stunning. Just like I said about Assisi, it looks like something straight off of a postcard. It was honestly breathtaking.
Our group went on a guided tour, as we do in every city, and learned a lot about Venice. For instance, did you know that as the city was built, they would place tree stumps every few feet in the group for support? So Venice is quite literally built on a forest.
We also went on a gondola ride while visiting. It’s such a stereotypical tourist activity, but how could we pass up an opportunity like that? This trip is a once in a lifetime kind of thing. Who knows if we’ll ever get the chance again.
The gondola ride provided some incredible views of the city. I can’t wait to go through all of my pictures.
After spending the right with Vic, Allison, Josh, Robin, and Jan, we got a little bit of free time to explore Venice on our own. Vic and I headed out to get gelato and search for a purse she saw while on the tour (which we never did find).
We met back up with our group to head out, practically running to make it to the train on time. Thankfully, we got there with a minute or two to spare.
Off the train and back on our bus, we headed to, what would prove to be, the worst hotel of the trip. The room was small and only made for two, though they threw in a cheap IKEA cot for a third person. There was no room to walk after setting down suitcases. The room smelled of smoke and cheap cologne.
To top it off, I somehow got stuck on the cot… and it broke. Everything was fine, I was sitting on it and catching up on some work. When I was finished, I put away my laptop and climbed into the small bed. Not two seconds later, *snap*, I was laying on the floor. Thankfully, it was only one board, with a few others just knocked out of place, so I was able to shift around a few things and place the broken board at my head and not have to lay on it. Had it been earlier than it was, I would’ve complained, but I just really wanted to sleep.
But in this hotel, rest didn’t seem a possibility. As soon as finally laid down and began to doze off, an alarm started to go off. It happened twice. I wasn’t sure whether it was a security alarm or a fire alarm, but with a 6 a.m. wake up call, we made a collective decision in the hallway to ignore it. If it kept stopping, it wasn’t that serious, right? I guess not, considering I’m alive and well after the experience.
You don’t plan for a bad hotel. Sometimes, it just happens. I’m honestly not that upset. It makes for quite the story. And at least it was only one night, and I had our next adventure to look forward to.
Next stop: Milan!