Last Stop: Venice, Italy

Our final stop was Venice, Italy! I have heard some much about Venice, "City of Water", "City of Bridges,” "City of Canals," "undoubtedly the most beautiful city built by man". Venice has also been described as being one of Europe's most romantic cities, so I went there without a boyfriend and with 6 girls. Fitting.

Ha, anyways, we hopped off the boat (actually after about 10 announcements that we had successfully arrived in Venice, we drug ourselves out of bed). We had about a day and a half in Venice so we knew we didn’t have to hurry. The previous night was our last “official” night on board so we lived it up. Plus, the boat was VERY rocky that night. So rocky that in the disco everyone was falling over. It was entertaining but also meant that I wasn’t able to sleep that night. For the first time, my second to last night on the boat, I had to take my Dramamine. Anyways, we got off the boat and just meandered through the city, walked along the water, hung out on the Rialto Bridge, the oldest one in Venice. Eventually, we found our way to St. Mark’s Square or in Italian, Piazza San Marco. As the central landmark and gathering place for Venice, Piazza San Marco is extremely popular with tourists, photographers, and pigeons. Literally, the pigeons flock to the people there in hopes of finding food or just wanting to scare one of the fearful tourists (me). We also walked through St. Mark’s Basilica which was beautiful. The entire roof is mosaiced with the colorful, little pieces. Plus, while we walked through mass was occurring. We walked around the upstairs, and could only catch a few glimpses of the service but we could hear the Italian hymns being sung. I got the chills.

Then, we decided it was time to buck up and take a gondola ride, after all, we were in Venice! So, we did our best to find the best looking gondola man but our efforts were unfounded, we settled on a younger looking guy with a shaved head. We hopped on a boat that didn’t quite look like it could hold 7 people but he reassured us that it was fine. He steered us around the canals for about 45 minutes. We kept begging him to use his limited English skills to show us everything around the city. He kept laughing saying that the purpose of a gondola ride was romance but we didn’t want that! He did his best to adjust and pointed out Napoleon’s old house, the highest the water has ever been and other interesting places around town.

Afterwards, him and his friend took us to this little café and bought us the famous Venice drink. We sat and talked with them for awhile and then they invited us to come to their house that night for dinner. I declined. We then headed back to boat for the last night of dinner. That night we also packed up because we had to put our suitcases outside of our rooms that night and be out of our rooms by 8:00 AM the next morning.

We woke up the next morning, had our last meal on board and headed off in our different directions. After a week together, we were all kind of ready to spend some time apart from each other. One girl and I really wanted to see Doge’s Palace which is right off of St. Mark’s Square. So around 10 AM we headed that way, walking along the canals, across bridges, it is amazing that Venice was literally built on water. The Doge’s Palace is a 15th century building and was the home to the ruler of Venice and the government that ruled the great Venetian Republic. It is also home to the famous “Bridge of Sighs.” New prisons were constructed way beyond the palace so it was decided to construct a bridge to join the Doge's Palace to the new prison structure. It was built very high up from the canal to deter prisoners from escaping. This was given the nickname ‘dei sospiri' (sighs) because of the convicted prisoners who were taken back to the dark and damp cells to serve their sentence. While crossing the bridge they would see the light from the window probably for the last time. Kind of a depressing story, but it was historical and interesting to see. We walked across the bridge and did our best to sigh while crossing it.

After Doge’s Palace and some delicious lemon gelato, we headed back to the boat, gathered up our stuff, drank one final all-inclusive glass of sangria and headed to the airport. After a four hour flight from Venice to Madrid, an hour layover in Madrid, an hour flight to Alicante, where it was raining, and a 30-minute bus ride straight to Hotel Spa Porta Maris, I walked in the hotel lobby and saw Granny and Pop waiting for me. In Spain. Insert instant happiness here.

Next update about my week in Spain with Granny, Pop, Ted and Sally to come soon!