Europe Update #3 - Venice












For Venice, I reserved the Westin Europa and Regina in San Marcos. After landing at the airport, the cabbie took us to the main train station and told us that San Marcos is only accessible by water. So it took about 1.5 hours to eventually get to the hotel. The hotel was hard to find - we expected it to be big and brightly lit, but it was actually tucked away in a little alley. No cars are allowed in central Venice - the only transaportation are via water (gondola, water taxi or water bus) or alleyways.

Venice gets kinda quiet at night. Daytime is full of tourists. Good thing about Venice (and Italy in general) is that most people speak English, so I didn't have to rely on what little I remember of Italian language from high school!

We finally got to sample authentic Italian pasta and pizza. Wendy and I have been debating whether the Aussie or Yankee versions of Italian food was more authentic, so Italy was to place to settle it. We found that marina pasta does NOT have seafood, so the Yankee version is true in this case. Still, we reckon the Aussie spin of Italian food are tastier. (I liked the thin crust Italian pizzas though).

Wintertime in Venice isn't too bad, as long as it isn't windy. On my last day there, we switched hotels (I didn't have enough Starwood points). OMG the hotel was hard to find. We asked heaps of locals and either:

1) they gave us conflicting directions, so we kept on backtracking, or
2) they never even heard of the hotel or the hotel's street address. WTF!

Ended up taking 3 hours to find the hotel, and it was dark by then. CRAP! I wanted to go to the church/library from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Interesting fact is that it regularly floods in Venice - St Mark's Square will regularly be under water.

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