Venice

I am writing this post from our hotel room in Venice Italy. We flew from Dublin to Milan early yesterday morning and took a train directly to Venice. There was a bus we took from the Milan airport to the train station for €5. The train ride took around 3 hours. Unfortunately it was a grey rainy day when we arrived and continued even as we arrived in Venice.

When we came out of the train station we were right in front of a canal. You can definitely tell you are in Venice. We walked from the train station to our hotel which was a 10 minute walk. While the canals and numerous bridges are pretty romantic, they are not the most convenient if you are travelling with a stroller.
Our hotel is in the Jewish ghetto. It was very affordable so we weren't quite sure what it would be like but it did get great reviews on trip advisor. We were not disappointed, we got a free upgrade and the room was like a palace. There is an entryway and then a door that leads into the bedroom and sitting area. The bathroom is huge and modern with a jacuzzi bathtub and separate rain shower. We also have the canal view with numerous windows. Obviously you can tell I could go on and on about our hotel. It's really awesome.

Our first night we just walked around and saw St Marco Square at night. It rained pretty hard so we ducked into a somewhat overpriced restaurant for an ok meal. I'm not sure if it was the rain, the numerous tourist stores or the shabby service at the restaurant but I didnt really feel the magic of Venice. It felt commercialised and a tiny bit sleazy.

This morning we woke up and saw that the canal was flooding some parts of the street in front of our windows. As we got dressed and went to breakfast (included) we noticed the water flooding the entire street. The hotel owner told us that 10am was the high tide. So the high tide coupled with the hard rain made the water flood the entire pedestrian street.
Since the water wouldn't go down until a few hours we hung out in our hotel room looking out at the people walking in the water on the street and the boats going by. It was quite fun. People had wellies on, trash bags on, thigh high fishing pants on, or rolled up their pants and went barefoot!
We finally went out after the water went down and took the water bus to San Marco Square. It was still rainy today but not as hard as yesterday. It is a beautiful area with the square, basilica and palazzo. We toured the palazzo and that took us a few hours. The palazzo is very ornate and definitely worth a look.
We had a meal and gelato in the square and then took some pictures of the basilica. We let Connor loose in the square and he went crazy chasing all the pigeons. The square was definitely his favourite part.
We walked around Venice after that and had dinner al fresco in a little square which was very pleasant. We walked back to the hotel and the streets were deserted and the many bridges and rivers were definitely romantic. Even if you are carrying a 1 1/2 year old on your hip.
Tomorrow we are having an early start and taking the train to Florence! We have been there before but always wanted to go back.
Here are some pictures from Venice: