Water, boats, bridges... It just doesn't get prettier than Venice.

When we were at the VanGogh museum in Amsterdam, I told Briann that basically, if you set something at night with the moon over a body of water and incorporate a bridge in some way, I'm sold. Based on that, it shouldn't be hard to see why Venice was my favorite city; there are bridges around every corner, some 400 total I believe our gondolier told us, but that's getting ahead of myself.

Leaving Vienna, unfortunately turned into a mini disaster. When I was booking all the hostels and trains for the trip, I had planned on us taking an overnight train between Vienna and Venice since it was quite a long journey, however, the website that I was using was going though some issues the week of all the booking and I ended up having to go into the city to book it. By that time, our overnight train was full. Being that the train ride takes 7 hours, I booked the earliest one possible, the 6:20, figuring that we would all sleep on the train anyway, and I wanted to get to Venice as early as possible. Unfortunately, I didn't consider that getting 5 girls up, packed and out the door that early wouldn't be easy. I bet you can see where this is going.

We missed the train. Luckily, we were able to get on a later train that got us into Venice at 6pm. We only had 2 nights in Venice, so it was sad that we'd gotten there so late, but we made the most of it. We checked into the hostel and headed out for pizza, gelato and walking around the city. We walked to the Rialto and then decided to take a vaperetto (like a bus, but on water :) around to St. Mark's Square. Even though everything was closed, it was really beautiful at night.

The following day, we went to the Doge's Palace, and were able to walk across the Bridge of Sighs. Outside, however the building was under construction and the bridge was surrounded by a big advertisement, a tragedy that I have been complaining about since.

We took the vaperetto again, in the daylight around the city. It's amazing how beautiful every building is, but each in a different way. Then it was a nice lunch and shopping, and in the case of Briann and I, getting separated from everyone else and getting completely lost. haha. The guy at the hostel said that was part of being in Venice though, so we weren't too disappointed.

We were then joined by a friend of Shana's, Dan, who is studying abroad in Venice, and the 6 of us went on a gondola ride. The night ended with more pizza, more gelato and drinks at a bar Dan frequents.

Writing out our stay like this, I realize that we didn't do a whole lot, but really, that's my kind of vacation, so it worked. Just being there was the experience.