For those who just started following along, I recently re-discovered my old travel blog from my first trip to Europe in the summer of 2014. I wanted to share these entries with you, because it is amazing to look back and reminisce on that trip. [Side note - this was all before I was vegan, so if there is any confusion about that food I was eating, that's why.] Here was my eleventh blog post from that trip.
August 9, 2014;
"Our ship docked in Venice early in the morning, and we could get off of the ship any time from 8:00am-11:00am. We were in no rush since we’re spending one more night in Venice, so we took our time, ate breakfast, and got off around 10:30. Our luggage was taken the night before, so we got off the ship, went to baggage claim, said some last goodbyes to friends, and got a taxi to our hotel.
Tonight, we decided to stay on the mainland near the airport, instead of staying on the island of Venice. We stayed at Hotel Antony, which was beautiful, and only a quarter of the price that we had paid for our hotel on the island the first night. The hotel was in a quiet little town with not much to do, but it was beautiful.
After we got settled into the hotel and done being glued to our phones because of the free wifi, we walked a block to the bus stop and took the bus onto Venice. The bus station was on the opposite side of the island from where we had stayed previously, so we decided to just walk around in the emptier parts of Venice and get lost. We had a map with us that we had gotten from our first hotel, so we used that to trace our route for the entire day with a pen.
By the end of the day, the route that we had walked probably adds up to about 5-7 miles. We started in the emptier parts of town, went all the way over to the Rialto Bridge and St. Mark’s Square area, and took a different route back to the bus station. We had basically walked in a big circle around almost half of the island.
We stayed on the island for about 6 hours total. We had a great lunch of pizza and salad at a little local restaurant in one of the more deserted parts of town. We also saw one of the singers from the cruise ship, and a few other people from the cruise. While we were in St. Mark’s Square, it started storming. The entire square cleared out, as well as all of the vendors getting their products out of the rain. The square looked beautiful when it was so empty. It stormed for about an hour, but we didn’t mind. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen rain anyways, although it did rain for about 5 minutes one of the days that we were on the cruise.
After 6 hours, we got back on the bus to go back to our hotel. On the bus, we saw one family from the cruise who had done the shore excursion in Dubrovnik with us. We got back to the hotel at about 5:00pm, and Rachel and I took a nap.
At 7:00, we decided to go to dinner. A restaurant was recommended to us by the concierge, so we walked there with another American family who was staying at our hotel, but the restaurant was closed. The other family left, but we decided to go to a restaurant a few minutes down the road. It looked like a tiny little hole in the wall, but all of our food was amazing! I got Gnocchi al Ragú, which was basically just gnocchi with meat sauce. Rachel got a vegetable calzone, which was about twice the size of her head. We all couldn’t believe how massive it was. My mom ordered a salad, which was also twice the size of her head, and my dad got Chicken Limoné. All of us loved our food, and we were extremely full when we left. It was also the cheapest meal we’ve had in Italy.
After dinner, we got gelato and went back to our hotel. We took showers, watched the news (which was the only English Channel we could find), and packed. Tomorrow we leave Europe and head back to the states. This was the best vacation of my life, and I am so grateful to have gotten this opportunity to experience such amazing things and make great memories. I will truly never forget this trip, and I am so lucky to have great parents who made all of this possible.
Although I’m very sad to leave Europe, I’m ready to get the traveling over with, get settled back into my house, and see my friends, family, and my dogs!"
