Our Honeymoon - From London to Spain II

Stop No. 2 ~ Venezia

In my opinion, there are two types of people you will typically bump into while in the airport. The first type are the people who get to the airport at least 3 hours in advance to go through the entire check-in and security process with ease and happily sit at their gate, browse the airport shops, grab snacks, watch movies on their portable DVD players and work on their computers. Two examples of these people in my life are my former college basketball coach, Helen Higgs and my dear mother, Anita Mathews. Helen was always making the team get to the airport super early, and who'd blame her? Checking through a team of 15 girls, two coaches, and two trainers seems like a daunting task to me. My mother has always been perpetually early to all things and naturally, her family was always perpetually early to all things along with her, bless her heart. Now, I know you have all guessed the other type of airport traveler. These are the folks who wait until the very last minute to leave their house for a 6am flight and then choose the long-term parking lot to save a couple of bucks, wait impatiently for the always late shuttle to the airport terminal, try to find the shortest and quickest security line and always end up picking the slowest - all for the thrill of not getting to the airport early. I'm an example of this type of traveler. And since my 'missed flight' record has only increased since I have been dating Adam, I would venture to say that my dear hubby is also one of these types of people. The difference between the two of us is that I sincerely believe he wants to get there early. I on the other hand, never do. I mention all of this because believe it or not, we missed our flight to Venice from London and spent the entire day trying to reroute ourselves to Venice and it was super frustrating and an unfortunate start to our fancy trip. Instead of walking you through the entire experience, let's just point out one little tip to all - DO NOT BE LATE FOR A FLIGHT OUT OF LONDON! The Brits take 'being prompt' very seriously and do not handle rerouting passengers all that well. As devastating as this was in the moment, I find it hilarious now - isn't it always good to laugh at ourselves? And yes, I will be making a stronger effort to get to the airport early from here on out. I promise (of course, I crossed my fingers just then).

Arriving in Venezia and then taxiing - via a water taxi, along the lido into Venezia proper, really sets the tone for your entire experience there.

It was getting pretty dark out as you can see from these photos (above), so I'm not going to share too many of my low quality pics taken by my little point and shoot camera that evening . But let me just say this, I've never been anywhere like Venice and the entire time I was there, I was known to look at Adam and say, "Seriously?!!" Venezia is truly magical, romantic, vibrant, beautiful, and full of wonderful food, wine, and gelato. In fact, I know it's probably a little premature to be sharing this so soon in my honeymoon blog series but, Italy, might be my favorite place in all of Europe. I would live in Florence in a heart beat. But that's for later.

Once we disembarked our water taxi, we set out to explore the city for a bit. I immediately fell in love with all of the walkways, the bridges, the gondolas and the colorful floral arrangements spilling out of the pots on the balcony's and window sills. After wandering for a bit, we decided to search for the water taxi that would take us across the lido to the Hilton Molino Stucky, where we would be stay until boarding our cruise ship the next day. This was another 'not-so-funny' honeymoon moment of ours. We could not find the pick-up spot for our hotel water taxi. I think we spent about an hour searching for it, walking everywhere, talking to everyone and then we split up. This is not a good idea when you don't have cell phones and one of us had to go to the restroom pretty badly and the other was starving. We found it eventually - praise be to God - and made our way over to this ginormous Hilton that is set on Guidecca Island, with spectacular views of Venezia!

The next morning we woke up, had an incredible breakfast at the rooftop restaurant and bar while enjoying the views of Venezia! By the way, in one of the pictures below you will see me holding a glass of the best Sangria I have ever had in my life!

After a delightful breakfast, we checked out and caught a water taxi to our Celebrity cruise ship, 'The Summit', with a couple from Canada who had also just stayed the evening at the Hilton. Water taxi's in Venice can be a bit pricey, we highly recommend being friendly and asking someone to share a taxi with you. For example, it was nearly $60 for a 10 minute taxi to our cruise ship.

I must add a caveat here, some of you may have noticed that I have the same coral dress on as I did in London. Due to missing our flight and other mishaps, we don't have our luggage at this point in the trip...and won't find it until Croatia. Another not-so-funny at the time thing/experience that is funny now. C 'est la vie. Moving along, we spent the remainder of the day thoroughly exploring Venezia:

-The views of Venezia from the water taxi into town-

-Views from Piazzo San Marco & the tourists' crazy obsession with the pigeons-

-I loved the striking black and white colors along the Piazza's walls-



-And of course, we loved the canals, big and small-
The Grand Canal from the Rialto Bridge (pictured above, and below)

When we first looked into taking a gondola ride along these beautiful canals via the internets, we saw that the average price was about $300 for a 30 minute boat ride. We were thinking about finding a larger boat and splitting the costs with some strangers just to get the gondola experience but we found out once we started asking the gondoliers that the price was actually only about $110...you know what they say, "When in Venice." It was incredible cruising along the waterways, in and out of the winding canals, enjoying the melodic serenade of the gondoliers all while sitting next to my handsome new husband. Very surreal, very magical.

After a full day of wandering around the streets, bridges, and canals of Venezia, Adam and I find a small restaurant off the beaten path for a traditional Venetian dinner and some vino. Delizioso! The grand finale of our day in Venezia was an evening in Piazzo San Marco listening to the quartets and enjoying bellini's. Fantastico! The next afternoon our cruise ship sailed away from Venezia, headed for the next stop on our trip, Debrovnik, Croatia.