In just over a week I've covered Venice, Salzburg, Vienna, and Budapest. I'm now in Prague facing some lodging challenges, but the bulk of this blog was drafted on my last night in Vienna:
I'm on a train to Budapest in the morning (now that I've figured out which U-Bahn stop the station's actually at) where I've booked myself into an Ibis hotel for a night of basic but standardized comfort that is supposed to include wifi so I will hopefully be able to upload this then. [This did not happen due to wonky wifi at the Ibis City Budapest]
To sum up Venice in one entry wouldn't do it justice, so these are only highlights. I'm also shying away from details about the sights as I feel descriptions without the accompanying photos is somehow incomplete.
Venice is charming but strictly for sight-seeing (and maybe engagement photos haha -- for those who know me, you might recall that I would like to have wedding photos taken at Versailles palace in Paris.) Don't show up with heavy luggage and expect the average street to be half the width of your driveway. Once you drop off your bags at your hotel and get used to what qualifies as a street though it's an immensely fun place to get lost in, and not the least bit scary to be wandering pitch black alleys between old buildings (as the saying goes "don't try this at home kids"). By my third day I had sought out the narrowest alley in Venice - measuring 2 feet wide and leading straight into the water. I also checked out a restaurant - Pasqualino's - that my friend Nelson (who was just in Venice one week before me) recommended, as well as another seafood restaurant for some smoked swordfish carppacio and probably the best salmon spaghetti I've ever had (if you follow the signs from San Marco to Rialto or vice versa, you will wind up passing through a small square that are all seafood restaurants).
GPS is both a life-saver and a huge frustration while in Venice. While jet-lagged and disoriented, it helped me get 95% of the way to my hotel (which google maps said was a 12 min walk! Yeah, if you live in Venice, maybe...) however because the steeets were so closely spaced and GPS can only detemine your location up to x meters, I was walking back and forth one street away from my hotel while google insisted that Ihad arrived at my destination.
Weather in Venice was lovely, high 20s (celcius) with all the water making it feel just slightly cooler. The city featured more tourists than locals and Italian was not at all the common tongue to be heard while walking down the streets, however visitors and locals alike were very polite and full of smiles. My hotel, Ca Centropietre, was situated on a pretty quiet street not far from the Academia Gallery and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (the latter of which I preferred better). My washroom featured a fold-down bidet, which I regretfully forgot to take a picture of. It was all that was available when I was booking accomodations, it was fine but I feel like I could have done better for that price. It is worth noting that they did provide a complimentary continental breakfast.
Venice is worth seeing for yourself, I would recommend it for adults of all ages. It's strictly about the sight-seeing, but you won't be disappointed. There are folks who would be happy to stay much longer but I think 3 days was exactly the amount of time I needed to see everything that I wanted to see.
I'm on a train to Budapest in the morning (now that I've figured out which U-Bahn stop the station's actually at) where I've booked myself into an Ibis hotel for a night of basic but standardized comfort that is supposed to include wifi so I will hopefully be able to upload this then. [This did not happen due to wonky wifi at the Ibis City Budapest]
To sum up Venice in one entry wouldn't do it justice, so these are only highlights. I'm also shying away from details about the sights as I feel descriptions without the accompanying photos is somehow incomplete.
Venice is charming but strictly for sight-seeing (and maybe engagement photos haha -- for those who know me, you might recall that I would like to have wedding photos taken at Versailles palace in Paris.) Don't show up with heavy luggage and expect the average street to be half the width of your driveway. Once you drop off your bags at your hotel and get used to what qualifies as a street though it's an immensely fun place to get lost in, and not the least bit scary to be wandering pitch black alleys between old buildings (as the saying goes "don't try this at home kids"). By my third day I had sought out the narrowest alley in Venice - measuring 2 feet wide and leading straight into the water. I also checked out a restaurant - Pasqualino's - that my friend Nelson (who was just in Venice one week before me) recommended, as well as another seafood restaurant for some smoked swordfish carppacio and probably the best salmon spaghetti I've ever had (if you follow the signs from San Marco to Rialto or vice versa, you will wind up passing through a small square that are all seafood restaurants).
GPS is both a life-saver and a huge frustration while in Venice. While jet-lagged and disoriented, it helped me get 95% of the way to my hotel (which google maps said was a 12 min walk! Yeah, if you live in Venice, maybe...) however because the steeets were so closely spaced and GPS can only detemine your location up to x meters, I was walking back and forth one street away from my hotel while google insisted that Ihad arrived at my destination.
Weather in Venice was lovely, high 20s (celcius) with all the water making it feel just slightly cooler. The city featured more tourists than locals and Italian was not at all the common tongue to be heard while walking down the streets, however visitors and locals alike were very polite and full of smiles. My hotel, Ca Centropietre, was situated on a pretty quiet street not far from the Academia Gallery and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (the latter of which I preferred better). My washroom featured a fold-down bidet, which I regretfully forgot to take a picture of. It was all that was available when I was booking accomodations, it was fine but I feel like I could have done better for that price. It is worth noting that they did provide a complimentary continental breakfast.
Venice is worth seeing for yourself, I would recommend it for adults of all ages. It's strictly about the sight-seeing, but you won't be disappointed. There are folks who would be happy to stay much longer but I think 3 days was exactly the amount of time I needed to see everything that I wanted to see.
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