More Adventures: Venice and Florence

It has been a beautifully hectic few days! Our apartment didn't provide us with a wifi code last night so today crunches a few days into a single post again.

We started out yesterday with our last morning in Venice - once again sunny and beautiful. We took a walking tour (which ended up being private since no one else showed up!), so the tour was even private. Our guide was great and very proud of being Venetian, so we heard a lot about the history of the city and all the wonderful things that Venice had invented (and conquered!) While we had seen many of the places she took us, she knew and showed us lots of little things we had missed, from the department store that is actually a remodeled palace or the perfect shop that is still furnished as a 1700s pharmacy to little spots with great views of the canals. 

The secret door into the Templar church for clandestine meetings!

A great view of the Rialto Bridge from a hidden little dock for gondeliers

Just a beautiful view of an old time building

We hauled our luggage back along the little narrow streets and over the bridges for our next adventure to Florence! Our hotel was nice and close to the train station, and although we ran into some hiccups (like the no wifi code), it's a cute, comfortable little apartment. It overlooks a square with a very enthusiastic accordion-playing busker each night so far, too, which is less cute and comfortable at 11 pm...

By the time we were checked in it was too late to do any of the museums or churches, so we hiked around the city a bit and up to the top of a very large hill with a great view of the city.

Streets on our way up the big hill

A bridge lined with fancy shops

This morning we had good intentions of waking up early...and instead slept in and continued our new, delightful tradition of pastries and at least two cappuccinos for breakfast!

From there we hiked over to see the Duomo, or the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore. It's a very old cathedral with a huge dome. The inside is strikingly simple for a cathedral, although still huge and beautiful. The outside is extremely striking, though, with red tile roofs and white and green marble (I think) exterior walls. We unfortunately didn't get to go up in the dome - they were booked solid for the next week when we checked several days ago.

Next, a very important afternoon iced coffee stop!

Finally, we spent our afternoon exploring the Pitti Palace and attached Boboli gardens. The palace has largely been converted into an art museum, which combines the art gallery/museum with the original royal apartments. Each room tells the history of what it held through multiple different owners, as Florence was managed by people from the Hapsbergs to Napoleon to the Medicis.

One of the rooms that is closest to its original state in the Pitti Palace

The gardens were not what we expected of gardens - almost no flowers, but lots and lots of paths among hedges and cypress trees, with the occasional flat bit of grass with sculptures. We saw a few little flower beds that you couldn't get to, and one little orange tree oasis in the middle of a fountain surrounded by some very cute statues.

Finally, yet another delicious pasta dinner followed by dessert. I can proudly report that today we did NOT have gelato. (We did intend to...but the restaurant brought us two chocolate lava cakes rather than one to split, so we decided to be very adult and have only the chocolate lava cake instead of both. Particularly as tomorrow is our wine tour day, which promises many more deliciously bad decisions!)

A Smooth Start to a Sisters Trip to Italy

I hope I'm not jinxing anything by saying this publicly (and on the internet, no less) - but so far this sisters trip has gone really remarkably smoothly! Our flights arrived on time less then 20 minutes apart, baggage claim and customs were fast and easy, and we met up just as planned for an easy train trip up to Venice, after a stop at a coffee and pastry shop. (We even stayed awake for the whole train ride!)

Train coffee and pastry snack!

We spent our first afternoon wandering around Venice, getting lost a lot (which is hard to avoid), but walked through some of the big areas like St. Mark's Square near the Doge's Palace and the cathedral. So far the city has been friendlier than I remember, which has been nice! We started our tour off properly by visiting two different gelaterias (one before and one after dinner), and even managed to stay awake until 8 pm. Our hotel is in an extremely quiet corner of Venice, which is nice. On our first day Google Maps took us to the tiny back door of the hotel, which is about 10 feet away from falling in a canal off a tiny alley, and completely confused the front desk person who had to let us in. On leaving the hotel, we figured out that we'd walked right by the front door on our way to the alley - we just hadn't seen it since their sign is set about 6 feet in from the street! We have a nice view our our hotel window, though.

This morning was focused on exploring the islands - Murano and Burano. We both fully enjoyed the hotel's delicious cappuccinos before catching the water bus over to Murano. We watched a glass making and blowing demonstration.

We wandered through the many, many cute little glass shops throughout Murano, seeing everything from stereotypical trinkets to some incredibly beautiful (and accordingly priced) works of art.

We enjoyed a nice break in the sunshine at a cafe right on a canal for our "lunch" of cappuccini, a glass of wine and tiramasu before heading off to Burano.

Our view for our afternoon snack

Burano is as beautiful and colorful as I remember it! I read this time that the houses have been traditionally painted like this because people wanted to show exactly how much of the building was THEIR house, and it's stuck since then. It's a very quiet island, in spite of all the bright colors - there are some shops and restaurants, but far fewer than in Burano, and not many people living there.

We took the water bus back just in time for dinner, and found a cute little wine bar with a reasonable selection of vegetarian dinner options and a really great wine list....before heading out for some more gelato. On our way back we got to enjoy the atmosphere of Venice at night, with its beautiful lit up canals and bridges.