Friday morning around 8 Jackie, Shay, Dane, Gen, and I left for Venice. We took a train from Santa Maria Novella train station in Florence to the Bologna Centrale station so that we could transfer to a station to get to Venice. The train left Florence about 10 minutes late so we got to Bologna late and missed our next train. We had to wait 2 hours for the next regional train to Venice. Once we got to the train station in Venice we stepped outside and it was beautiful!! The canal was right there!! It was amazing!! After arriving there we decided to find our hostel so that we could drop off our bags and check in. We found the bus we needed but we weren't quite sure of the stop. We got off at the wrong stop and walked around trying to figure out where we were going. We found a man to ask and he explained that we needed to get back on the bus that we were originally on and it was one of the last stops on the route. The bus we needed was number 4, well we accidentally got on /4 instead! On the bus we talked to the bus driver and asked for help with directions. She told us which stop to get off at so that we could catch the number 4 instead of /4, she said it would be there within 6 minutes. After we got off we found the number 4 and got on and found the hostel. Once we got there we had to rearrange our rooming situation because Dane was originally not supposed to go with us. Once we had that all figured out and arranged we dropped our stuff off in our rooms and left to go back to the city center. On our way back we could either get on the number 4 or number 19. We had to wait for a while for one of the two to come. Number 19 was a faster way to the city but after waiting we decided to just get on the number 4 bus. Once we got to the city center we had a little over an hour to walk around before we met up with a local that Jackie new. We met Jackie's friend near the Jewish ghetto and walked around with her before she had to catch a train. After saying goodbye to Jackie's friend we found a restaurant to eat. We got three courses for 12.50 euro and they even had tap water!! We always get excited when we can have tap water for free, not common here!! After dinner we got desert and walked around and explored. After walking around we found the number 19 bus and went back to our hostel to sleep!!
Saturday morning we got up and ate breakfast at the hostel. After breakfast we found a bus to the city. We walked around going into shops and making our way to Piazza San Marco for at least a good 4 hours. On our way to San Marco Gen and I decided to take a gondola ride! Usually it costs 40 euro per person however we got them to let us take a ride for 25 euro per person. The gondola ride was very cool!! We had a lot of fun going through the canals, the man steering the gondola showed us an old jail, Marco Polo's house, and Cassanova's house! After the gondola ride Gen and I went to find a bathroom...unfortunately it cost 1.50 euro, we decided we didn't have to go that badly. After leaving the bathroom Gen and I met back up with Jackie, Shay, and Dane. We went into Saint Marks Basilica. It is so gorgeous from both the outside and the inside!! Unfortunately the outside had some construction going on but we were still able to see a good portion of it. All the mosaics with the gold background were just soo gorgeous!! They had the mosaics inside and outside. The floors inside were also very cool with marble mosaics. It was kind of dark inside the basilica so it was hard to see everything, however those were still my favorite parts (as they often are, because let's face it, the floors and ceilings in Italian buildings are often, pretty awesome!)!! After Saint Marks Basilica we found started on our way back to the train station, because we wandered around and into so many stores on our way to Piazza San Marco we didn't actually know how long it took to get back to the train station. Once we got back to the area though we found some dinner. The train was at 5:56 with another transfer in Bologna. We ended up getting back to Florence around 10:20.
Overall, it was a wonderful trip!! Venice is absolutely gorgeous and such a cool experience!! It's amazing to see the canals going in between the buildings!! All the bridges and buildings are very pretty! We lucked out on weather so much!! We didn't have any rain and any flooding Saturday morning was gone by the time we were to the city center. The weather was gorgeous and sunny!
Next up...Germany!!
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