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.