And yet another early morning, we checked out of our hotel and said goodbye to Florence. After a couple hour bus ride, we caught the train to take into the city. There are no cars in the city or even any driving at all. Not even bikes. Instead of cars, locals buy boats. A question we had was if they have to get both a boat license and a driver’s license if they go into the city or anywhere else. We didn’t get a chance to ask, but it’s an interesting topic to research.

Our tour guide for the day was really intriguing and made the experience very interesting. The most interesting fun fact she told us is that Venice is actually made up of a bunch of little islands. She also told us about Marco Polo’s history with the city and had us stand in his courtyard. I thought it was interesting that nobody knew which apartment was actually his but have the entire area dedicated to him.

We had lunch at a canal side restaurant where Nicole and I split a salmon and salad dish. The salmon was served sashimi style, which was kind of shocking but still delicious. It was enough for us not to feel hungry but didn’t stuff us to the point where we couldn’t move. It was nice to not be stuffed and was refreshing.

We then headed over for our Gondola ride, which was unreal. That was definitely my favorite part about the Venice trip and I’m sure others agree.

We were a little behind schedule so Matteo was visibly stressed. We had to run to the train to make it. We made it with just a few minutes to spare. The train ended up sitting there for about 20-30 minutes past the time of departure and we thought something was wrong with the train itself. One of the conductors came back and said what was going on in Italian, so we had no idea what he was saying. The train then began to move and we got off. The doors shut with people in them, so Matteo had to tell the conductor to open the doors.

We asked him what the conductor said, and he said that people were protesting on the train tracks and they had to have law enforcer remove them before they would depart Matteo was so stressed and we felt so bad. Eventually, we made it to the hotel in Padua.