July 22nd-July25th Venice & Dublin
We had the most wonderful trip. We said goodbye to our amazing tour guides and other group members last night after dinner and we said goodbye to Jim and Darlene this morning over breakfast. We are so incredibly grateful for every second of this unforgettable experience.
We will spend the morning traveling with the McVickers to Venice where we are trading the unacceptable 107 degree heat in Florence for a frigid 99 degree heat in Venice.
We will spend the morning traveling with the McVickers to Venice where we are trading the unacceptable 107 degree heat in Florence for a frigid 99 degree heat in Venice.
Getting around Europe is quick and easy. We've had a few train mishaps but, there's always another train right behind and the Florence train station is just a few blocks from our hotel. We had no problem at all getting tickets to Venice or catching the train.
*tip: if you have issues getting seats together you can always try car "C." It's where those without assigned seats go so there's never any reserved spots and every time I went through the "C" car on the way to the food or restroom -it always had the most open spots.
When we step off the train and exit the station, here we are... just right on the Grand Canal. It's unbelievable. We're so excited to be here to experience this place. Venice is incredibly beautiful and one of the most different cities I've ever been to.
*tip: if you have issues getting seats together you can always try car "C." It's where those without assigned seats go so there's never any reserved spots and every time I went through the "C" car on the way to the food or restroom -it always had the most open spots.
When we step off the train and exit the station, here we are... just right on the Grand Canal. It's unbelievable. We're so excited to be here to experience this place. Venice is incredibly beautiful and one of the most different cities I've ever been to.
We got a hotel with views of the canal just a few blocks from the train station (it's also just a few blocks from the bridge that takes you to the bus station where you catch the bus to the airport). This is a great location. We don't have to lug our bags all over the place, we can just drop everything at the hotel and head out into the city.
We grab drinks and watch the hustle and bustle pass us by on the waterway (fireman boats, garbage boats, amazon delivery boats, passenger boats, taxis), all of it fascinating. And then we just wander through the city - we want to experience it. Venice is known as La Serenissima (the serene) as well as any number of other names: the City of Masks, the City of Bridges, the City of Water, the City of Canals, the Floating City- but I think they missed out. I might have called it the City of Stairs since you go up and down a staircase at the end of every.single.block.
Venice is all twisty but small. I can see that even though we are hopelessly, purposefully, lost, it would not take much time before we knew our way around here. And when we do use Google Maps or another maps app, the routs it takes us on are comical. The tiniest back alleyway that looks like a dead end is apparently the quickest way to get where we're going and it delights us every time it seems like the maps app is trying to kill us.
This place is known for masks and glasswork, and some HUGE percentage of all of the tourist shops we see have both - or at least one or the other. This is a mask shop / glass shop city, with a bunch of restaurants thrown into the mix.
This place is known for masks and glasswork, and some HUGE percentage of all of the tourist shops we see have both - or at least one or the other. This is a mask shop / glass shop city, with a bunch of restaurants thrown into the mix.
Well - you can tell we're no longer on a Rick Steves tour as we now have to fend for ourselves. And, of course, we can still use the Rick Steves guides and audio tours on our own to navigate the city. But it’s not the same luxurious experience we’ve become accustomed to. We’re so spoiled now.
We signed up for a "coffee and pastries" tour of Venice for first thing this morning. We thought we might be able to beat the heat if we got started early enough. Nope. But our guide was great and we enjoyed learning about some of the oldest and best pastry shops in town. The tour included some traditional sweets as well as a walk about the city, which also had us seeing and learning about some of the major landmarks.
We signed up for a "coffee and pastries" tour of Venice for first thing this morning. We thought we might be able to beat the heat if we got started early enough. Nope. But our guide was great and we enjoyed learning about some of the oldest and best pastry shops in town. The tour included some traditional sweets as well as a walk about the city, which also had us seeing and learning about some of the major landmarks.
St Mark's Square in Venice. Our tour guide left us here, in the main square in Venice - Piazza San Marco. The lines for the Basilica and Doge's Palace were intense. Since we no longer had pre-arranged passes or "front of the line" access we spent some time commiserating that we were no longer on the Rick Steves Tour and then just enjoyed looking at the outside of the buildings.
The oldest/first coffee shop in the world is here, Cafe Florian. So, you can imagine Dan's delight at getting to taste coffee from the original. It was a really fun experience. He said it was good coffee. His takeaway from the trip was that overall the coffee in Italy - across the board - is better. You can get a good cup of coffee or espresso at a gas station. But, in Seattle we do have specific shops that are just as good, if not better. Dan enjoyed coming to that conclusion all over Europe as he sampled coffee again and again to come up with his thesis - his magnum opus. Thanks for coming to his "Ted talk." He is willing to do more research though... to get his coffee PhD.
The oldest/first coffee shop in the world is here, Cafe Florian. So, you can imagine Dan's delight at getting to taste coffee from the original. It was a really fun experience. He said it was good coffee. His takeaway from the trip was that overall the coffee in Italy - across the board - is better. You can get a good cup of coffee or espresso at a gas station. But, in Seattle we do have specific shops that are just as good, if not better. Dan enjoyed coming to that conclusion all over Europe as he sampled coffee again and again to come up with his thesis - his magnum opus. Thanks for coming to his "Ted talk." He is willing to do more research though... to get his coffee PhD.
Pictures from our day, wandering in this fantastic city.
Goodnight from Venice!! We say goodbye to family here. Tomorrow they go to Rome and we catch a flight to Dublin on our way home to Seattle.
July 24th, Sunday
Originally our flight was supposed to stop in Dublin for one hour and then continue on to Seattle. But after booking, we got a notice that there would be a 24 hour lay-over instead and our flight would leave the next day (giving us one afternoon/evening/ morning in Dublin). We were excited about it - why not spend one more day in a new city in Europe.
First order of business - the Guiness Factory Tour...
First order of business - the Guiness Factory Tour...
Then on to a local restaurant with traditional Irish fare. This food was SO good.
We finish the evening with a night-time bus tour of the city. It comes with tomorrow's hop on hop off ticket so we take advantage.
We finish the evening with a night-time bus tour of the city. It comes with tomorrow's hop on hop off ticket so we take advantage.
July 25th, Monday
We spent the last morning hopping on and off a hop on hop off bus tour, enjoying as many sites as possible with nowhere near enough time to see the whole city.
We so enjoyed Dublin (the city AND THE RAIN). We'll have to come back again when we have more time.
Our Irish Air flight back to Seattle
Our Irish Air flight back to Seattle
A Return to Seattle
Our European tour over, we now have a lifetime to talk about all of our experiences, to bring up shared memories, and to dream of our next big adventure... If we could make it happen, we would definitely go on another Rick Steves tour in the future- a combination of traveling on our own on either side of the tour and picking a new adventure with Rick Steves would be ideal. We know tons of people who have been on Rick Steves tours. And, now that we're some of those people, we understand why everyone recommends the tours so highly. We will too.
(...And we have a fuzzy dog to snuggle. It's really the only reason we were looking forward to returning to Seattle.)
(...And we have a fuzzy dog to snuggle. It's really the only reason we were looking forward to returning to Seattle.)
Pictures from some of Captain’s grand adventures while we were off galivanting across Europe.