We took an overnight train from Paris to Venice on Friday night. It was a new experience for me, while I have been on an overnight train before (Malaysia), it was a completely different experience for me. The train in Malaysia had berths stacked on each other 3 high, I was at the bottom, and you remain in your berth the entire ride. This train had a compartment that was allotted to 6 people and at the beginning of the evening had 2 rows of seats facing each other, and at night we transformed them into two stacks of 3 bunks. In our compartment we had 2 Americans (us), 2 Argentinians, and 2 French. We ended up spending a lot of our awake time getting to know the 2 women from Argentina and it was good for me to dust off my Spanish and give it a good exercise since they spoke less English than I did Spanish. Anyway, we were able to get a good sleep as the train rocked us the whole night through as the Alps passed us covertly by.

We arrived in Venice at 10:30am and immediately got a vaperetto (public water taxi/bus) towards St Marks Square. By the time we arrived at our hotel, Molino Stucky Hotel, it was around noon, and by the time we checked in, settled in, explored the hotel, and caught the hotel water shuttle (how fun is it that they have water shuttles) to Zaterre it was afternoon. We choose to go to Zaterre instead of going straight to St Mark’s Square (the main tourist area) to get our first glimpses of Venice without the crowds. We wound our way through the picturesque alleyways, canals and piazzas to see the “must see” sights of San Marco (St Mark’s). We stayed in St Mark’s Square all of 15 minutes just to decide that the line to see the Cathedral was too long and the crowds too chaotic before retreating back into the winding streets of Venice.

We never did see St Mark’s Cathedral, but did peer in through the gates. It was enough for us, for some it is important to go into the church that holds the Apostle Mark’s bones but we didn’t feel it was important enough to spend time waiting in line to see it. Instead we felt like 2 kids in a candy shop as we explored this strange city of narrow ways and endless canals. We roamed until we just couldn’t resist the gelato stands anymore and gave into their enticements. Then we walked on until our feet needed a break and the piazza seemed to cry out for us to stop and enjoy a café or spritz. And when our tummies couldn’t take the smells coming from the restaurants we stopped for dinner and repose to watch and hear the beauty of Venice as we tasted the long waited Italian cuisine.

The first day we were there we stayed on the main island of Venice until just after dinner and then decided to head back to our hotel a little early, for an early bedtime, because the second day we planned to see the city in the morning and later evening and needed our rest to do so

Our hotel was awesome. We felt pampered and cared for and we feel wholly spoiled. Because we are Hilton Gold members we had free breakfast buffet, free access to the executive lounge (more free food and drinks!) and each day we were there we had access to the spa for 2 free hours (hot tub, Turkish bath and sauna). Pampered we were indeed. So because we wanted to enjoy some of our hotel perks we decided to spend some time at our hotel instead of being away all day, and in the end we felt like we got the most of both the city and the hotel.

St. Mark’s Cathedral
The second day we woke up early to get into the city before it was flooded with tourists (there are a lot of cruise ships that come in just for the day). We are so glad that we did this because you get to see the city wake up and the locals do their errands and daily tasks. In some places you have the streets to your self and if you aren’t there on a Sunday like we were you can beat the lines for St Mark’s (it doesn’t open until 2pm on Sundays). So we wandered and explored and had our devotions with Espresso at a local favorite piazza. It was so fun to slow down and enjoy without the crowds. At about 12pm, when the crowds grew thicker, we headed back to the hotel to enjoy the amenities as described above and take a nap to refresh ourselves for the evening. That evening we headed back in to the main island for dinner and some nighttime strolling, and got to see another side of Venice without the crowds. In the evening we stayed to watch the town tuck in for the night and to stroll the romantic and intimate night alleyways and canals. I’m not sure if it was just because it was Sunday but we were surprised that the town closed up so early, I had always heard that Italians eat late and are to bed late that I was surprised when after dinner (we ate about 8:30) things were already closed or closing. We made sure to grab a gelato at the first stand we saw so that we wouldn’t miss out on a little sweet while we strolled along. By the time we returned to our hotel and packed up our things we were ready for a good night sleep. Tomorrow Cinque Terre! Ciao Venice!

Happy Trails,

The Smuckers

We enjoyed the view of Venice from the top of our hotel