Rewind: Venice

Italy was a whirlwind.  We spent only a couple days in each place, just hitting the highlights.  The day we got to Venice was Aaron's birthday (July 18), so we had planned to go out that night.  First we had to get from the train station to the B&B, which turned out to be a nightmare!  The water taxi was 50 Euro and the line for the ferry was ridiculously long, so we decided to walk.  It took us about an hour, wheeling our luggage up and down stairs and cobble-stoned streets, in the blistering heat.  I would have paid $1000 by the end, just to have skipped that torment.  The city is beautiful, but transportation is a challenge to say the least.

We finally got to the B&B, showered and changed and found out there was a huge firework show that night because it was a national holiday.  We're just hitting the national holidays in every country!  

In the end, Aaron didn't want to see the fireworks because he didn't want to deal with the crowds of people and since it was his birthday, I obliged.  We went to get some dinner at a restaurant by the water:

I had salmon and a tomato salad (literally just slices of tomato):

The salmon was cooked to perfection.  Yum!  

Aaron ordered squid ink pasta (we had seen it on TV and wanted to try it):

It's black (ink, duh!) and had chunks of squid.  It was actually really mild, borderline bland, but still tasty.

We heard there was a big party on the island of Lido, so we walked to the ferry.  On the way we passed The Rialto Bridge (covered up for some reason):

and San Marco Square:

Then we waited for the ferry, which was packed!  Everyone is going to Lido:

We walked through the town to get to the beach and once we did, we were so surprised.  It was like an all-night rave on the beach:

It was hard to get good pictures of the stage, but it was loud, techno music and lights and everyone was dancing and partying.  It was nuts!

We watched the sun come up and by around 9am they had the entire beach cleared:

Amazing!  So, naturally, we spent the day on the beach:

I took daytime pictures on the way back:

San Marco Square:

Random canal:

Gondola driver (driver?):

Rialto Bridge:

There's another island called Murano that is known for it's amazing blown glass (Murano and Lido are islands, yet still considered part of Venice).  I've been to Venice before and went to Murano and took a tour of the blown glass factories and it was amazing.  This time, I just took a picture of some blown glass stuff (whatever I was up all night).  This is what Murano glass looks like:

We slept and the next morning we took another torturous walk back to the train station (Venice is by far the most confusing city in existence.  It's impossible not to get lost.  The only way to find your way is to continually ask for directions every 5 shops.  Seriously.) and caught the train to Florence.  Stay tuned for Florence!