We decided at the last second to take a honeymoon to Italy, almost entirely for the reason to eat good food, drink good wine, and feel some heat. Normally, we would avoid places like Venice to avoid crowds, but with a direct in and out of Venice I figured we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to at least check it out for a day. And so a day we did.
The beginning of the Venice trip was awful! After an overheated flight and hours at the rental car depot, we finally managed to get onto the main island of Venice. Our first real encounter in Venice was the parking guy telling us to leave our car unlocked with the keys inside…. no way. Who even does that? Is that even a thing? After a second of googling I read about late night rental scams using tourists rental cars… so yeah, we locked the car and kept the keys. I had, on a whim (like everything else), booked a nice hotel for our one night in Venice. This was a “splurge” in terms of our trip. The hotel was called Aqua Palace and after a grueling and tourist-filled hot walk to find it, we were upgraded to a room with a canal view!
Up until this point, Venice was cool but hot and overcrowded. Plus we were straight off the plane and needed a nap.
The best part of Venice was at night. We woke up around seven and ventured out once again. The town was much quieter and cooler – it was beautiful! We checked out San Marco’s square and the basilica. It was all very cool and the atmosphere of lights and music was magical. Staying the night was definitely worth it.
The next morning was similar – there were less people and we explored around the tiny walkways and multiple bridges, trying to find the art exhibit way on the other end of Venice. We eventually did, checked it out, saw a park, and then got on a boat to get outta there! We had enough – it was the perfect amount of time to look around and see what we wanted to see. Our next stop was Negral, in Valpolicella wine region to visit an old ski friend!
