Europe Trip Part 3: The Beauty of Venice, Italy

leenymeeny
Nov 17, 2019
4 min read

Updated: Nov 22, 2019

It was just recently when the news broke out that Italy declared the City of Venice in a state of emergency due to serious flooding. This saddened me as Venice is a very, very beautiful, yet small city, with lots of lovely places to visit. Every corner seemed like an instagrammable background, especially their famous canals!

This is the last leg of me and my friend's Italy trip and I'm so excited to share with you why I said that this city is stunning. You may refer to this link for the first part of our trip and this link for the second.

Train Booking

Coming from Florence, I booked our train trip through Trenitalia again, which is the national train operator in Italy. You may refer to this link to check their rates. Just don't forget to translate the page to English, unless you can understand Italian well.

Our train ticket from Florence to Venice

As soon as we were on the train, the view along the way was entirely captivating! There were greeneries, several bodies of water, and a lot more! At one point, we thought we were lost so I started to panic. I told my friend that we should already get off the train. But thankfully, we did not. Well at least not yet, because it turned out that that was the second to the last station where we were supposed to get off!

When we arrived at Venezia Santa Lucia station, it was peaceful and not too crowded, unlike our experience at Florence.

We were greeted by this view outside the train station

Waterbus Ride

Fun fact: There are no cars nor motor vehicles in Venice. To get from one place to another, either you walk or book and ride via their famous mode of transportation: the Vaporetto waterbus or simply the water taxi. This is because Venice doesn't have roads and only has canals, including the famed Grand Canal.

Since it was my first time riding a waterbus, I didn't spoil my chance to take souvenir photos. It was interesting because it wasn't like a simple boat with a motor engine, but rather, it looked like a small ferry inside where you could bring your luggage and take a seat.

As soon as we got off the dock, it was a little overwhelming as there were literally a lot of small alleys where you could easily get lost. A handy map is really an essential tool to locate a place. In our case, we used the very useful Rome2Rio App. It took us about 10-15 minutes of walking going to our hotel: the Ambassador Tre Rose, a 3-star hotel which we booked via www.booking.com. One fascinating thing about hotels in Venice is that they are really expensive! Probably because it is just a small city and depending on your hotel's location, it will almost always be just walking distance to the different popular tourist spots.

Basilica de San Marco

Our first stop that day was the well-known Basilica de San Marco. According to Wikipedia, "it is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Venice, northern Italy. It is the most famous of the city's churches and one of the best known examples of Italo-Byzantine architecture."

The Basilica viewed from Piazza San Marco

Within the church's vicinity, there were so many shopping areas and restaurants to visit. In terms of the price, I'd say some of the goods were on sale, but still a bit pricey for me. As for the food, since we were on Italy, there were a lot of Italian food everywhere, may it be pasta, pizza, or bread. I tried this small restaurant on our way back to the hotel and it tasted fantastic!

Canal Grande and Rialto Bridge

Of course, our trip to Venice wouldn't be complete if we didn't visit the very popular Rialto Bridge which is located along the Grand Canal. Here in the Philippines, it is similar to the man-made grand canal located in a lifestyle mall in Mckinley, Taguig City.

On that day, there was a rowing boat competition within the city, and all waterbus schedules were cancelled. It was fine since walking not only made us healthier, but we were able to appreciate the view more.

For breakfast, we had our first meal of the day at a restaurant we found along the alleys. Even though the cost of the food was somewhat expensive, it was a very satisfying experience!

After eating, we took a stroll around the city. There were so much to see! Gondolas, souvenir shops, restaurants, and exquisite birds everywhere. It was a very romantic place and highly recommended for couples who want to experience an intimate and delightful vacation.

We didn't get the chance to ride a gondola though due to time constraints, but I was so glad that I was able to tick this city off my bucket list! It was a short but indeed a worthwhile trip.

The next day, it was time for me to take my courage and bravery to the next level. I was off to travel to another country on my own! And it was another marvelous journey for me. Which country am I talking about? It's VIENNA, AUSTRIA! Stay tuned for my next post.

Cheers!

Leeny

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