Venice

Feels like a broken record saying this now, but today was one of the best days of the trip! We woke up at our awesome AirBnB in Florence with the sweetest host, cleaned up, and headed out to make our way to… Venice!

First, we had to fill up our water bottles at what we agree is one of the coolest thing we’ve ever seen a city offer: Free water! The park near where we stayed had a free water-filling station where you can get unlimited water, both still and bubbly. Every city needs this!!!

Our drive was swift and smooth and we got to Venice by early afternoon. After dropping off our stuff, we took the tram from the mainland to the island (archipelago?) of Venice. To be honest, we were both kind of expecting it to be a bit on the sour side after hearing people talk about it. But we loved it!!!

The place is BEAUTIFUL, with so many canals, old buildings, and cute businesses. We didn’t feel overwhelmed with the tourist vibe nearly as much as we expected, and felt like the city was pretty clean despite hearing an NPR story recently about how dirty the city is.

We enjoyed vegan pizza (4 slices for Amanda, 12 for John…) from Bella & Brava, gelato (dark chocolate and cherry with a vegan cone…!) from Gelato di Natura, and Amanda found a place she’s in love with: a fresh juice bar with alcohol! She got a cocktail called Frida with strawberry, pomegranate, lime, and tequila. She loved it.

We even stumbled upon a grocery store in an old Venice theatre. Have never quite experienced ceiling art like this at a grocery store in the US.

After weaving our way through the windy streets and neat bridges, we headed out and are currently on the tram on the way back to our AirBnB. We’re so glad that Venice exceeded expectations!