Arriving in Venice

It was his birthday on the last day of July. 

A date, which just so happened to coincide with the end of my masters.  

Coming to the end of a truck load of my essays seemed like a perfect opportunity to be whisked off to Italy for a few days. 

A trip to Venice was one of his presents and I was lucky enough to be his date. 

We landed at Marco Polo airport under a sky of clouds but we weren't too disappointed as our private water taxi whizzed us off to our hotel and I could hardly contain my excitement or my hair!

We crossed the Adriatic sea 

and soon reached the city built on water.

The scenes were mesmerising. I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming

We both agreed it was like Disneyland! Like we were on the "It's a Small World" (after all) ride, except this was real! 

After dodging all of the gondolas and other water taxis we finally arrived at the  Bauer Ill Palazzo.

Unfortunately check-in wasn't until 3, so after messaging home to let everyone know we had arrived safely we headed straight out in to the streets of Venice. 

Almost immediately we stumbled across Piazza San Marco. 

I mean, I knew our hotel was close to St Mark's square, but not thaaaat close! 

Tired from our journey, we took shelter in some air conditioning at HK Wine bar with some crisp prosecco and beautiful views of the canals. 

The food was quite disappointing, which was a real shame as we'd heard such wonderful things about Venetian cuisine. 

Back at the Bauer, we were treated to more prosecco before being shown to our room.  

We took a nap after all that prosecco with views of the Campanile from Piazza San Marco from our room. 

That evening we got all dressed up and ate at Ristorante al Giglio but once again, we were disappointed. The restaurant was lovely but very overpriced for the quality of food we got. Where are all the amazing Venetian restaurants?

More Italian wanderings domani, tomorrow, I promise!