We landed in Vienna without incident. Then briskly walked over to our connecting flight gate. The Vienna airport is really nice. The paths were very well marked and labeled from gate to gate as we wandered down the long winding hallways to the gate. We were there in just enough time for a bathroom break and then boarding time. We were ushered out to a shuttle that brought us a good distance away to the twin turboprop plane with everyone else that was on the flight. That flight was pretty smooth and simple although a bit snug.
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| Arrows to our next flight in Vienna |
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| Vienna Airport |
I was unable to get a good flyover photo of Venice due to our plane's wings and propeller, but it was neat to see Venice from the sky. It was small compared to everything around it and seriously just resides in the middle of a lagoon. We landed in Venice at Marco Polo airport. We couldn't believe we were finally here after what felt like forever. It was essentially 48 hours after we left SFO that we arrived in Venice.
We went to the baggage carousel for our flight and watched as our entire flight grabbed their luggage, but ours never came out. As we sat there trying to figure out next move yet again, a teenage girl came up to us and mentioned that she couldn't find her bags either. The distress on her face was familiar to us at this point. We felt really bad and tried to offer what advice and comfort we could, but we were not getting anywhere with our luggage either.
We saw there was a baggage lost and found area at the Marco Polo airport. We punched in our data and took a number. There were quite a few people also waiting for their luggage. When we were called I went up to the counter to give the entire story to the Italian Lost and Found worker. She was very nice, empathetic and responsive. She spoke english and was very helpful. The Italian airport lady indicated that our baggage had not moved from New Jersey at all. She said they would put in an urgent reroute on the bags and that they would have them in Venice in the morning. It sounded too good to be true, but it was all we could really do. We were without our luggage and roughing it a bit.
We took our carry on baggage, lost and found slips and headed out to our boat water taxi towards Venice. This was the 2nd taxi we had to book. We missed our first prepaid boat taxi and they would not let us reschedule it. They called it a "no show." That was a bummer.
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| Our Italian Lost and Found Slip |
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| Our Taxi Boat to Venice |
The boat ride out was pretty rough. They packed us in like sardines and it was really hot inside. We were speeding along at a pretty fast pace, bouncing off opposing boat wakes along the way. We arrived in Venice and slowly motored around the canals dropping off passengers here and there. The taxi drivers are very experienced in the canals and know how to approach the docks and dump people off. They weren't very sweet to people, more matter of fact and usually just bumped up against the walls with their boats and had them get off as quickly as possible.
Venice is awe inspiring from first sight. It's a city that was founded by townspeople fleeing the invading barbarians on the mainland. They went out to the middle of the lagoon and began to build a living space among the many tiny islands that were there. They built on wooden planks, posts and piers. Over time those planks petrified and became the foundation for more and more buildings and concrete foundations on top of that.
We arrived at the San Angelo pier where we both jumped off the taxi boat. A short walk through a piazza, down the side of a canal and over a bridge brought us to our hotel. We stayed at the Corte de Gabriela in San Marco. This hotel is pretty cute. They were very nice to us upon arrival. We were met with glasses of Prosecco, a small gift box of supplies we may need and then they secretly left a notebook in our room later. This hotel also has a back door that opens to a small canal, where you can be dropped off directly at the hotel, but a private taxi costs quite a lot more.
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| San Angelo Pier Drop Off in San Marco |
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| Us Posing over a canal |
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| Our Hotel in Venice |
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| Prosecco Delivered to us by our Hotel |
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| The back door to our hotel. |
We freshened up a bit and asked our hotel staff for food recommendations. We had a couple tours scheduled on this day also. We were supposed to visit the Doge palace first, but that timing was a bit too tight so we decided to forfeit that one.
The other tour we had was a sunset boat cruise and a bottle of Prosecco. We left our hotel to try to go to the meeting point. I confused the meeting point for this tour with the one for the Doge tour and led us to the wrong place. We got there in time, but then realized it was wrong. The other meeting point was a good distance away so we had no chance. Two tours forfeited so far. Boo. We were in the Piazza San Marco so we tried to make the best of it and took some photos of the Piazza, the Basilica and the Campanile (tower).
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| St. Mark's Square, Campanile and Basilica |
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| St. Mark's Basilica |
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Venice is full of tourists, but we quickly started to love its overall vibe. It's easy to take your mind off of not having your lugged and taking 2 days to get somewhere when you are seeing amazing things like the canals and the people of Venice.
By the way, everyone we encountered in Venice spoke pretty good English. We always lead with "Parla Inglese?" to get things moving along.
After our looked around the Piazza we we decided to head back to our hotel and then plan for dinner. We stopped by the Rialto bridge (wiki) and took some pictures and really soaked in the Venice scene for a bit. It was thick with tourists but also the perfect moment as the sun was drifting behind the city. Watching this place hustle and bustle with just boat traffic is really cool. I think I would love living here.
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| Rialto Bridge |
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| View from the Rialto Bridge |
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| The Gondola Crowds. (Not worth the money we heard) |
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| Just a crumbly wall building. |
We headed back to our room and dropped off some shopping purchases. We got ready for dinner and headed over to Acqua Pazzo which was one of the places recommended by our hotel staff. We ordered Fried Squash Blossoms Stuffed with Ricotta Cheese, Ceviche, Lobster Pasta, Shrimp Pasta, Fried Calamari and a bottle of wine. Overall it was like a 6 out of 10. The meal was mostly uninspired but wasn't terrible. I think this restaurant isn't truly that great, but is a tourist referral spot for some reason.
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| Ricotta Filled Squash Blossoms |
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| Fried Calamari |
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| Lobster Pasta |
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| Shrimp Pasta |
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| Some sort of Watermelon Liquor Dessert |
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| Finally some Wine |
After dinner we went for a stroll through Venice and took some more photos. I also found a really tasty Gelato place. No pics of the ice cream though. Here are some more from our walking around.
That is the end of Day 2. We are in Venice.
Full Pictures linked here.
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| Venice has wells! Read about their amazing invention here. |
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| This is the kind of wall that Italian restaurants paint on their walls in America. |
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| This thing was blinking and reminded us of Burning Man "art" |
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| Hot Venice Canal Action |
Full Pictures linked here.
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