It’s been over a month (yayy!!!) since we’ve been married.
Whoever said that nothing really changes when you’re married must have been
doing something wrong. This past month has been more amazing than the last 5
and some change years combined (a feat not easily achieved). Anyways, we moved
out of our house and left for a road trip on June 1st (more on that
later though). We finally have a moment to sit down at the computer and do our “honeymoon
report”. Sorry it’s so long, we were gone for three weeks and want to be as thorough
as possible!!
Our wedding was May 4th and we stayed in Downtown
LA that night. An Escalade picked us up from our hotel and took us straight to
the airport the next day. Needless to
say, it wasn’t fun to get last minute wedding things together and pack for a
three week long trip at the same time. We flew Lufthansa LAX à
Frankfurt and then Frankfurt à
Venice, Italy. The flight was
uneventful; always a good thing! Service was great, food was good for airplane
food, alcohol was free and we had individual in-flight entertainment.
We landed in Venice at about 1pm after a red eye. It was raining lightly but we hopped on public
transportation with our 50lb+ bags and set off for Venice or what the rest of
the world calls Venezia. The airport is on the main land while Venice is an
island but the bus ride was just under 20 minutes. We started looking for our
hotel with no general direction or map of where we were headed. Asking around
paid off and luckily we found our hotel without too much trouble. We checked into a cute little boutique hotel, Hotel
Moresco and were so thankful for the complimentary cappuccinos we received
while we waited for our room.
Some of the best cappuccinos we had the entire trip.
The hotel
was a mix of old world charm and modern amenities and our room, though beautiful
was pretty small. The hotel had a bottle
of Prosecco on ice waiting for us. We relaxed for a bit, and then set off for a
short walk to explore the city.
Small bridge and canal in Venice.
Check out the reflection!
Had to take a picture with the griffin. (hint: Clippers)
Our short walk turned into a few hours. We ended up walking to
St. Mark’s Square which ended up taking about 45 minutes. It really shouldn't have taken that long but
finding a direct route in Venice takes time, effort and a map.
St. Mark's Basilica in St. Mark's Square
Throughout the trip we made it habit to eat gelato twice a
day. Our very first honeymoon gelato was in St. Mark’s square. Yummy? Yes. The
best? No. We found that later.
We continued to explore by foot and take in the sites with
what little day light we had left. We
headed towards the Rialto Bridge for dinner which was a huge mistake. The area is beautiful to look at but the restaurants
are tourist traps. Overpriced and unauthentic are two words that come to mind.
This would be the first of many, many pizzas we ordered in Italy.
The Grand Canal from Rialto Bridge
The day light was gone by the end of dinner
and we set off for our hotel which, according to google maps, was a little over
a mile away. It was this night that we truly understood what it meant to get
lost in Venice (everyone must try it!). It might sound silly to “try” to get lost but
it really was soo much fun and very hard not to do. It took us close to two
hours to get back to our hotel. We found a little bakery across from our hotel,
bought some pastries and went watched some BBC (the only English speaking
channel we had).
On Day 2 of our honeymoon we slept in and then headed to the
complimentary breakfast at our hotel. There were a nice selection of pastries and
cured meats. They also had some Prosecco and orange juice out so of course we
made “Italian mimosas.” We noticed that we were the only Americans at breakfast
and attributed this to the fact that Americans, more often than not, take
vacations during summer and it was still early May.
After breakfast we headed out to St. Mark’s square again but
this time took a more direct route. The walk was only about 20 minutes.
This map helped save us so much time!
We arrived to an overwhelming amount of tourists;
it was almost claustrophobic. This was attributed to the fact that tourist
buses would bring people in during the day which is why at night, the crowds
were much more manageable.
The "day-time" tourists near St. Mark's Square
After our
nap, we searched trip advisor to
find a spot to eat lunch. There was a highly rated pasta place that only served
out “take-away” (more commonly known as take out) and we thought it sounded perfect.
It ended up being a tourist trap that
was overpriced and way too heavy. Needless to say we were unsatisfied and
wanted something else. Saul had been eyeing a fast food pizza place that all
the locals went to so we decided to give it a try. It was delicious and definitely
made up for the mediocre pasta. We were still jet lagged and pretty tired so we
decided to go out for a bottle of wine and gelato. You’ll notice that the
common theme throughout our honeymoon is food, wine and gelato J.
Near Venezia-Saint Lucia train station where we ended up finding gelato.
We set off to find a gondola ride. We decided to go with a
gondolier that would take us through small, romantic canals but that would also
take us on the Grand Canal. It was just about sunset and so beautiful! When we got the Grand Canal portion of the
ride the gondolier saw one of his friends who I guess needed a quick ride
across the canal (bridges are few and far between). At first, we were kind of
bothered by this but turns out the guy became our personal photographer and was
only on our gondola for a few minutes. At this point, it really started to hit
us that we were married and on our honeymoon.
The Grand Canal
It was dinner time
and we were determined to not choke like we had done the previous night. We
found a hip palazzo with locals away from St. Mark’s and decided to eat at a traditional Italian
eatery. We once again ordered pizza and
pasta but much to our delight; it was delicious! We went out to a couple bars
in this same area and of course finished the night with some more gelato.
We got up, ate some made to order eggs and bacon, and headed
off to Florence (Firenze) on Ferrari’s high speed train, Italo.
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