(Friday August 17, to Monday August 20, 2012) We took a high speed train to Venice from the Milano Centrale train station. It cost us about €36 each and took about 2 ½ hours.
We arrived at Venice train station at 3:10 p.m. and navigated our way to the nearest vaporetto stand (water bus) and bought a 72 hour pass (€35). We then figured out our route (rather Steve did) and boarded a very packed water bus to our B&B. About 30 minutes we arrived at out stop, and lugged our bags down a few narrow alleys and found B&B Al Teatro.
Our B&B was a quaint, super clean, and just lovely. Al Teatro is a family ran B&B with only 3 rooms to rent. Eleanora who was born there is the brains of the operation and is a friendly lady with a wealth of knowledge and a very honest opinion.
Our B&B was located in San Marco on the Grand Canal and our room had a modest canal view. It was so fun to see all the gondolas going by, and we could even hear the men singing and playing music.
I was surprised to find out that the water in Venice is really gross, polluted, looking, and even smells pretty bad too. The water is murky and almost a turquoise blue color. I really can’t imagine what lives in there and would probably die if I ever fell in it.
We spent three wonderful nights in Venice exploring, touring, and dodging the thousands of cruise boat tourists. During the day it was so hot that we hid out in our room until it got cooler. It seemed like every day we got to eat at better restaurants.
Our last night at the outdoor restaurant in the square at Benefico was my favorite. Many of the restaurants give you lemoncello at the end of the meal on the house and that night I had almost an entire bottle and had the hangover the next day to prove it.
Some of the highlights of the three days were: our trip to Burano, taking a short trip to a nearby island, to a church where we climbed a tower and could see the entire Venice, meeting a friendly couple from Atlanta and having great conversation, eating a charkutterie plate of more than 7 meats, happy hour every day in our room, looking for yoga in San Polo, seeing the lemon beagle in the open market, finding the grocery store, so we didn’t have to pay 1.50€ for water anymore and .20€ instead, and not waiting in line for the Basilica.
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