Venice – Where even the coldest heart starts melting.

Hi My Friends,

I have been promising and promising, to write about our Hilarious Zurich Trip and share my Photoshoots! (I will, I will, I will)

A week ago we were travelling around northern Italy, and our first stop was Venice.

Praveen and I met four years ago, and since then we have the tradition to go somewhere to celebrate it. Luckily our anniversary is in Spring, so we do not need to travel very far.

Funnily it is the second year when we decided to go to Italy again. Wonder why we would like to get married there as well :)!

First we thought that we are going to take the flight to Venice and we will spend there another 3-4 days. But then friend of us, said that Verona is also super magical place to visit. Plus Praveen was crying about his “long pants” which he can only buy in Milan. ( My man cares about the fashion more, than probably I do- hard to measure)

Well, and since we do not own our Private Jet yet.Then we thought why not to do a road trip with our super cute Volvo. First road trip for our car and us- something always to remember. Memorable, it was!

 

Driving: Switzerland To Italy

Yeah probably all of you who are living in Switzerland been in Italy with a car at least once in your lifetime. And others who haven`t  here is something to keep in your mind: If it is 130km/ph then it means 160 .. And I am not kidding…

In Switzerland everyone drives, let`s say “politely” or, however, we can say it.
So driving in Italy and Switzerland can be too different Stories.

First, when you cross the border you notice 2 things immediately – Tunnels do not look the same like back in Switzerland and speed limit – They haven`t heard about it or if they have .. Then they do not care. Oh and I forgot the third thing – no one shows which way they are going. Just go with the flow. Believe me or not after 4 days driving in Italy. Eventually, I was going with the flow.  But First day it was interesting.
If you are the one who drives like “Swiss Style “, then do not go on the speeding line on Italian Highway. Just do not go, if you think that you`re driving with 130 km/ph and you`re trying to take over some slower cars ( Yeah they do exist on Italian Highway), then nooo.. Cause apparently meanwhile your car is trying to the get higher speed you have angry Italian behind you and driving so close to you that you feel that they can even hear and feel how I was breathing.

During our trip on Friday we saw 2 accidents, probably we were lucky to see only 2 accidents. Because for Italians “Break” dosen`t exist.

All right now probably all Italians who are reading it thinking that, camooon It is Italy, go with the flow!

That`s exactly what we did!

Next Stop Venice

Well after 12h on the road. Yeah can you believe it 12h on the road! We made it to Venice and our Hotel. We actually didn’t get lost even once.  Once again we really recommend you to print out Micheline Travel Guide and have a good GPS!
I  still can not believe that we didn’t get lost.

Anyhow, we arrived at our hotel 5 pm – Junior Park Hotel! Highly Recommended.
First of all it has free Parking, second of all they have most fantastic rooms and garden.
You have several restaurants and shops right behind the hotel.  We stayed at the Dulex Room; we do recommend to stay there!

Rooms are gorgeous, with balcony, peacocks in the garden and everything is calm and quiet. Breakfast is at the most incredible dining hall and super delicious food. They even had Gluten Free Menu. So it is a big bonus for someone who has Gluten Allergy!

They have Hotel Shuttle, which costs 1,50 Euro per person and will bring you to the train station and back whenever you want. Plus their hotel team will buy you the tickets and makes sure that you “will validate your ticket at the train station” otherwise, you are going to face the penalty. ( Will speak about it at the end of my story). So in total up and down train tickets and shuttle for two people costs: 10 EUROS! 

We did not stay in a central of Venice; reason was that I love to see the “Real Places”; As we all know Venice is just full of tourists, so how many real Italians you are going to meet?
Plus also, we had a chance to travel with Italian Trains, – another exciting experience.

We met local people at the bar, we drank some local wine and ate some local Pizza. No one speaks English, but everything seems – Bueno! We had great fun!

Day in Venice 

Like I said, we took the train to get to the central of Venice. Trains were nice, of course, they were about 35 minutes later. But no problemo!

When we arrived in Venice, we bought the day boat(bus) ticket  which is 20 euros per 24h)
We had no idea where to go or what to see. Since I have this thing that I do not like to make plans.. I just go with the flow.

So we just jumped on the boat and started to go somewhere.
And once we thought it is time to discover Venice, we jumped off! That`s how simple it is in Venice.
But it is not that simple to find something else in Venice. Since I googled before and heard from our Hotel Guests, that there is no point to follow the map. It just doesn’t work there. And let me be honest, It was the best option for me. I don`t like to follow others anyway and walking around in Venice is just the most romantic and interesting thing to do.

 

Why? Because you never know what comes next, and most likely you will not know later how to go back there: Too many small streets and bridges. So for Venice, I recommend you to trust your heart. You will discover the best restaurants, and eventually you will find all the “must see” places.

 

 

Italians and Food 

Italians are funny, or we just had funny moments.
They do not let you decide what do you want or prefer. They know what do you want and need!

They also have Gluten Free Wifi 😀

It was a lunch time & we found a beautiful Sunny restaurant with terrace, and we thought, why not to enjoy our meal here.

We kindly said to the waitress that if we can sit where is the sun, he looks at us and says, yes here is the table: ( and pointing towards the table which was in the shade). Meanwhile, I was showing the table where we would like to sit and he says.. Yes, here it is ( again showing me the table in the shade).

Ok, didn’t work .. I politely said that we will go and visit the church, and we will come back.

 

Of course, we never returned and also had no chance to visit the Church, because the entrance we found was only for people who will pray. – No food, no church!

We moved on, and we found a small super cute restaurant, and since Tripadvisor awarded it, I thought- let`s try it!

Amazing!  – Unfortunately do not remember the name of the restaurant and didn’t take any pictures either. Just because the food, service were so excellent.

 

The most expensive Picture of my life.

 

After our delicious lunch, we arrived back to the Grand Canal , the moment we poped out from the middle of nowhere. We had ladies waiting in front of us and were CALLING us that we MUST take a photo with them. As Being polite tourist we couldn`t refuse: We were happy and smiley and by the time we finished our photos. She says  — 10 euros! Haha,

Serious? Well, we paid ( Since we had no other option), some 5-6 euros and She let us go!
But then we sat just right behind her and started to stare people. Probably the best Humor of the day.
They all had happy faces when they were taking the photo, like we had! 😉 haha

But then comes: 10 EUROS! Haha, you all should saw their faces. I still regret that I didn’t take a video of it. Their  Faces were suddenly like day and night  – Happy Face to WTF face 😀

Chinese were trying to be smart by saying: oh but I took with my phone or whatever.. No, no, no – You took a picture with me: now pay! (Great Business Plan)

Like I said Italians won`t let you  decide. You want or not the photo, you still pay! 😉

 

 

Then we finally thought maybe we will go to another Island.

We never made it there, since we missed the right stop and ended up again some another not the right place
When we came off, and we were asking how do we get back to Central of Venice, Then “Ciao Paulo” was saying to us that the next boat will go in 5 minutes. All right then we had 5 minutes, to go to shop and get a bottle of wine.. But Paolo was saying “NO NO NO, you stand there and wait for your boat!”
Like I said, Italians will not let you decide: You go and wait.. We had more than 5 minutes, but there we were waiting.. and Bottle of wine was waiting as well!

 

By the time we got back to the central of Venice, we had ended at the empty restaurant. Just because after this long day I wanted to choose, where I sit, what I drink and etc. – Finally we had luck.
Aperol and lovely Sunshine!

 

Magical Venice at Night 

And when the sun sets, Venice turns to be the most Magical Place on Earth. Oh, it is like you are travelling back in time and everything feels super romantic.

Of course, we ended up in another restaurant not because we chose it; Italians did for us! 😉 As by the time we were walking around with our hungry face on they make sure that they will offer you something for free, and you will eat at their restaurant
Well, we did have incredible food! In Venice, the food is absolutely fantastic, or we were just lucky!

After an excellent dinner, we managed to get our Masks and walk around and get lost in the most romantical town ever!
It is like you are getting lost the in love, same way you get lost in Venice!

Love Venice.

Travelling Back to our hotel!

We had our train back to the hotel around  22.00. Actually next time I would love to stay the night in central of Venice as well, just because this Venice turns to be the most magical place on earth or we just had way too much wine! 😉

 Keep in your mind: “Validate your tickets”  Si, Si, Si

We did it and the Ticket Checker came to check it.. We were happy and smiley, so were the couple just one seat ahead of us!
But they forgot to validate their tickets, or they weren`t informed about it.
The Italian Ticket Checker said: “Oh you haven`t validate your tickets, this means these tickets are not valid.” They were trying to explain that they have tickets, and didint know that they have to validate them.

Suddenly the Italian Ticket Checker said, “well the penalty is 60 euros.” You can feel how their happy day just got ruined.

And then The Italian Ticket Checker said:  “No problemo, you turisto I helpo !! 🙂 ”

And train stops, he took the tickets, jumps out of the train. We thought, ok great, nice man, he is probably validating tickets for them.

He comes back and says: “No problemo, you turisto I helpo – 30 euros” and sits next to them!

This couple paid their fine and they came off at the same stop where we did! They weren`t happy and probably their most romantic evening just turned off!

You turisto, watch out! 😉

Thank you for reading it!

Next Stop: Verona