Canals, Gelato, and good Company

Our cruise highlighting Italian ports ended with the gorgeous port of Venice.  It’s a city that stuns its visitors with its incredible beauty, vibrant people, crowds, sunshine, and preserved maze of streets and waterways that are all car-free.  I wish so much that I could describe the city better, but it is certainly somewhere that you have to see to believe.  Our visit was an overnight, thankfully, because this city is really amazing to see at night.

As I’ve said before, traveling on a ship has certain benefits and one of those was the sail in to Venice.  We actually were able to sail right through a couple of intimate channels and passed directly by St. Mark’s Square.  Jam packed with people, it was a really different view than most get to have of the square and provided for an exciting taste of what the city was ready to offer all of us for the next day.  As soon as we could Elena, Brett and I all headed out into the watery city and quickly stopped for any number of things; new sunglasses, gelato, etc.  I was not in a huge rush to get gelato for some reason, but as soon as I saw one sign I rushed to grab some.  Elena asked me a couple weeks ago if I remembered a favorite gelato flavor or shop.  I didn’t have to think before answering that Crema de Grom from Grom gelateria in Florence was my all time favorite.  Well guess what?!  They’ve opened up a Venice branch!!!  Ha ha!  I couldn’t believe it especially since we were somewhat in a side, back area away from many tourists or canals where most people would be.  I was so pumped to see its stainless steel counters and order up a serving of extra dark chocolate with Crema de Grom in a cone!  My day was set!!!  Ha!

Afterwards we continued wandering, taking dozens of pictures of canals and gondoliers singing for their supper.  This city has a picture around every corner.  Its broken plaster walls and hundreds of bridges are begging to be admired and we had no problem doing so.  We followed the sings reading “Per S. Marco” to get us finally to St. Mark’s Square, which was crowded as usual, but even more it was gorgeous and exciting!  It was funny to find so many crew in the square, but of course it is the first place to go in the city!  Tons of us were there and we had fun looking around and taking a quick walk through the Basilica. 

Now usually I am the one with the ideas and ways to see the ports, but this time I didn’t do the best.  I suggested that we take one of the public water buses up the Grand Canal for a nice view and good photo ops, having done this before successfully.  Well for some reason the vaporetto we got on was so overcrowded and there were no outdoor seats, so it ended up being pretty miserable and we decided to hop off about halfway through our ride at the stop for the Rialto Bridge.  From there we just continued walking and stopped to sit and get something to snack on before starting our walk back to the ship. 

That night we hooked up with some of the people who work in the boutique and started walking around at about 9:00 to find a spot for dinner.  We didn’t want something crowded and we wanted to eat outside, preferably with some legitimate local food.  After about half an hour we found the place with tables outside in a small side courtyard and we plopped all 11 of us down at a table when we heard they had pasta made right in the restaurant from scratch and tons of pizzas.  We had such a great evening just getting to laugh together and eat INCREDIBLE food.  I actually got two great items on the menu and was happy as a lark.  The two people working the restaurant were so generous to us and our main waiter, Hanny was so much fun.  He was hilarious and made the experience that much more special for the group.  We were exhausted by the time we walked back to St. Mark’s Square for the view at night and wandered around to get to the ship.

Seriously this city is a labyrinth of alleys and if it weren’t for signs pointing to Piazzale de Roma (right by the ship) there is no way we would have ended up back at our floating home!  We thought our feet were going to fall off, but it was worth it for such a fun night. 

Eating lots of pizza for all of you!

Tripp