Flo-ing into Venice
This morning we left Florence after breakfast with Donatello and a service at the cathedral. We have been asking about mass or church and no one understands us, finally we looked it up and church is "chiesa" (key-ay-za) in Italian so it's no wonder no one knew what we meant.
Unfortunately the Gregorian chant only happens on Holiday mass at 1030 (and it's in Latin) so instead I have for you an unedited (apparently my phone didn't have a recording option so I had to download one and it doesn't have an edit option) sound recording of mass in Italian.
After that we grabbed pizza to go and hustled to get our stuff packed and then off we went to the train station. It was a calm two hour ride although I still can't get internet on those damn trains because my stupid Samsung T-Mobile phone is not made to travel internationally (which irritates me so much so that I may get an iPhone when I get back!!!) . Anyway, the pizza was cold but I did try the pepperoni and thought it was good. The other pieces were tomato and basil, also good.
When we arrived in Venice I was a bit concerned as I hadn't heard from our host(s) but we found our way through all of the gentlemen obnoxiously trying to cart our luggage for us and made it over a bridge of stairs and then narrow sidewalks to our "hole in the wall" B&B. It's GORGEOUS on the inside with a huge terrace for breakfast and our room is beautiful as well. The house is from the 1400s with original beams and the doors to our room are from the 1700s in India, they have pokey things on them now that used to be long spines to ward off elephants. The door was open just for us when we arrived and Max set us up with a map and recommended some shopping areas.
We chilled out for a bit in the AC after lugging our bags over the stairs and then got dressed for our evening out in Venice. It's amazing here! I've never seen anything like it, there are millions of roads and they all lead somewhere without a car to be found. No worry of getting run over and no pollution. Everything is truly beautiful. We stopped at some shops and I bought a great beach hat and then we went for a gondola ride down the Grand Canal.
We walked around some more and stumbled upon several different plazas, squares, and corridors.. One area even had an archway through which we saw five or so people dressed in fancy old English clothing playing croquet! Feeling thirsty, we stopped in a cute little wine place called 'ESTRO vino e cucina' and had some "flights". EP tried the locals and I got the peculiars, it was a fun selection and both of us enjoyed the tasting as well as the fancy cheese plate and free bread.
After that we continued to dinner at La Lanterna de Gas which we picked because they give you complimentary prosecco before dinner and limoncello after. I got ravioli and EP the lasagna, both were good and our waiters were adorable Italian nuggets that barely spoke English. I was so excited for more wine that I forgot you have to swirl, sniff, and taste before they pour you a full glass. I love it!!!
After dinner EP navigated us back to the B&B and now we are having some frustrations with the wifi. I've been letting my phone sit here for about an hour just outside of the room and the upload of the church service failed at like 60%.. The wifi has been awful so far at both places and we're about to be without until we get to Rome! We are definitely disappointed that we care so much but also don't feel like it's a shame to want to spend an hour on wifi before bed. Hellooooo the blog is important!
Unfortunately we have noticed a few corners where there seem to be a lot of trash. I guess in a city with so many people you might have that problem but it's a shame to see it sometimes floating in the canals or piled up in the cans. It truly is an intriguing place though with different things around every corner. Another thing I found interesting was that at two separate churches I saw posted on laminated full size paper the obituaries of two different parishioners. How nice to be memorialized in such a way, if only for a week.
We are pumped to begin the cruise tomorrow and have our backpacks ready with swimsuits and flip flops.. Free food and free drinks, YES PLEASE!
ALSO my apologies for the decline in my writing, I have no idea what's wrong with me except that my vocabulary has been limited and my humor is missing. SCUZI! 😳