Dreamy Venezia

Here we are at the end of our trip in last but certainty not least, Venice. This place is truly a dream, it feels like it just isn't a real place. Venice can get a bad wrap for being too touristy but again, not in November. I am still dreaming about being here and lusting over these photos. To begin our trip we took the Trenitalia from Milan to Venice in the business class. The train was empty and relaxing. As we got in we got to see the city on the water from the train windows. We left the train station and were immediately wowed! The hotel website said to take a boat from the train station but we decided to just walk as it was only 20 minutes and the most beautiful day. We got to see the real Venice, where people actually live and work on the way to our hotel across the Rialto Bridge. 

We got to the Hotel Ai Reali and quickly freshened up before getting some lunch. We stopped at Cantina Do Mori, Venice's oldest bar founded in 1462. Similar to Rome where they have Apertivo, Venice has Cicchetti which is tapas and they serve it all day. Most bars you find will have tons of fresh delicious food to choose from including meats, cheeses, arancini, crostini, fish, etc. Our absolute favorite part of Venice besides seeing the sites, was enjoying wine and cicchetti. After that we went to  a wine bar and did a tasting with a yummy pizza. A little tipsy, we stumbled upon the Peggy Guggenheim Collection which was such a treat! We finished the day at the beautiful restaurant Bistrot de Venise which has a Michelin star and 60 wines by the glass.

The next day as usual I woke up at 7am for sunrise and walked around St. Mark's square. I highly recommend doing this, you get to see the sunrise on the water over the gondolas. After we ate some complimentary hotel breakfast buffet and continued our day. We walked back to St. Mark's and kept going until we got lost in a few beautiful local neighborhoods. The best part of Venice is getting lost! Don't spend your whole trip figuring out where to go on your phone. We were pretty beat from the walk so I quickly went to our hotel spa which was very much needed! We continued to walk around for the rest of the day and enjoyed some mulled wine off the street vendors. After we got a gondola right from our hotel which was nice but underwhelming and so expensive! I am glad we did it though just once. Our last night we enjoyed more ciccheti and ate dinner at Cantina Do Spade where I had the most amazing ravioli and meatballs.

The next day we had to say goodbye to Venice, and did so in style with a private water taxi to the airport. Normally we would not have gotten a private taxi because it was very expensive but we had to leave at 5am. This was so much fun though having it all to ourselves and docking right at the airport! Till next time Venice... we will surely be back.

P.S. Thank you so much to my amazing husband for putting up with my photography OCD and taking pictures of me even though he hates it!