Our Airbnb contact in Florence had a wedding the afternoon we arrived.  To "check in" before she left, we took a taxi from the train station.  I realized that was actually the very first taxi we had taken the entire trip.  It was a quick 10 minute drive over to Olivia's house, and then we climbed the winding walkway up to meet her.

It was around 1pm, so we dropped our bags and set out to explore Florence.  We stopped at a little place for a takeaway slice of pizza and sandwich and walked around.  First, we encountered a small, quaint little square near a university.  There were a few outdoor cafes, and a loud group of young people were chatting on a bench.

Then, we continued along the main road and across a large bridge into the city center.  Next to our bridge lay Ponte Vecchio.  Built in 1218 and rebuilt in 1345, it was the only bring to survive World War II bombings and even still remained after the 1966 flood.  The bridge was very charming and clustered with little shops along the corridor, which has been its tradition for over 700 years. http://www.visitflorence.com/florence-monuments/ponte-vecchio.html

We walked past the Iffiza , a very famous art museum, which had statues of famous Italians (Da Vinci, Donatello, etc).  This fed into a large square—Palazzo Vecchio--with the old royal palace, another museum, and statues galore.  We were impressed by this showcase, especially since I love a good statue.

Turning onto a side street, we found the magnificent Duomo.  It's an enormous gothic cathedral with accompanying baptistry, and in the traditional cathedral layout (in the shape of a cross).  But, what makes this cathedral so unique is the exterior design.  Colorful tiles in pinks and greens (very rare colors for a church) adorn the entire outside of the building.  Built in the 1200s, the baptistry was the first structure erected.  Then came the the rest of the Duomo, including the dome in the 15th century, which was an enormous feat.  It has no internal braces or scaffolding to support the dome.  Using Rome as an example, the architect drew inspiration and concocted plans for the dome to support itself.  It worked, and it's still standing today.  The beautiful tiles were added in the 1800s to match the baptistry.

By this point in our journey, we were physically tired (plus Chris still had his cold) and our senses a little overwhelmed from everything along the way.  We had seen unthinkably beautiful places every day and truly felt the experience and life of each place.  Seeing the Duomo was incredible, but it was almost like we weren't capable of fully absorbing it just yet.  It's a luxury to have this "problem," we knew that we were spoiled.  But, we also felt inclined to take a little break and just relax for a bit, so we could better appreciate the tremendous city before us. 

So, we stopped at a cafe and enjoyed a glass of red wine (me) and coffee (Chris) outside, even though it was freezing.  It was nice to chat together and watch everyone bustle about.  Shortly thereafter, we went looking for a place to have dinner.  We finally decided on a restaurant and each indulged in pasta.  The waiter asked us what we wanted for a second course (we kept on hearing this throughout Italy), and we said that we were full.  Nothing more please.  We looked around to the other few tables and noticed that they had several plates on the table.  They had ordered appetizers, wine, pasta, meat, and maybe dessert.  They were the more ideal patrons, I suppose.

Then, the waiter left for 30 minutes before depositing the bill on our table--it is is very common for this process to take forever.  In American restaurants, they like to turn tables over quickly, and Americans typically don't spend more than 90 minutes dining anyway.  But in Europe, dining is much more of an event.  They can spend 3 hours eating course after course, ending with coffee.  The waitstaff typically won't bring your check unless you purposefully catch their eye and ask for it.  That can easily take 30 minutes to an hour sometimes.

After dinner, we stopped for our obligatory gelato at a wonderful place along the way.  The people were nice, the prices reasonable, and thankfully the gelato excellent.  Once home, I took a shower and read the information Olivia had left us about Florence.  The plan was to more fully discover the city the next day and go inside the Duomo.

The next day, I awoke feeling really congested, feverish, and overall pretty bad.  Chris saw my condition and set out to find medicine at a nearby pharmacy.  Unfortunately, it was Sunday, so almost everything was closed.  He determinedly found an open pharmacy near the train station and, after walking over 3 miles, returned back with medical goods.

After resting all morning, I decided to try and venture out.  So we, along with another Airbnb traveler who arrived that morning, walked to the city center for a few hours.  Unfortunately, I just couldn’t stay out very long, and we picked up dinner to go. 

The next day, we had to wake up early and catch our train to Ancona.  From there, we would ferry over to Patras, Greece, and then take a bus to Athens.  That was the plan.  More to come in the next section.

Although our time was really limited in Florence, we were thankful to have seen the city.  In the end, Florence was a place we would definitely return.  It is a busy city with a metropolitan vibe, but it's also very cultural, historical, and beautiful.  We’ll just have to learn more and see Florence more fully later during one of our inevitable future trips.

We were both jazzed about our journey to Venice.  It was one of the places we were most excited about visiting on our trip.  We couldn't wait for the gorgeous scenery, authentic food and gelato, and Italian hospitality.

Our introduction to Venice began with our Italian bus driver.  An Australian family with 3 boys sat near us on the bus.  The kids had been very well behaved during the entire 4 hour bus ride, but the 8 year old boy stretched his leg on a nearby seat during a stop.  The driver spotted that behavior, rushed over and yelled at him to take his foot off the seat (complete with hand motions)--"this is not your house!!!"  The poor kid was just embarrassed, and his parents didn't quite know what to do but awkardly look away.

Then, although our bus ticket listed the end point as Venice train station, the driver dropped the bus full of tourists onto a cruise port with no instructions.  Of course, everyone eventually figured it out.  We had to pay a euro each for a nearby train to take us 10 minutes to the actual Venice train station.  It was now about 4pm when we arrived in Venice.

Sometimes on this trip we learn something that we feel like we should've already known.  For example, did you know that Venice is actually an island?  We didn't.  You either spend a fortune to stay on the island of Venice or less of a fortune to stay on the mainland and just take the train over to Venice.  As you probably guessed, we stayed on the mainland--Mogliano Veneto to be exact--about a 20 minute train ride away.

We took the train to our hotel to drop off our backpacks (thankfully it was basically adjacent to the station) and then returned to Venice.  We walked around the city for a couple of hours, soaking it all in.  Walking over the main bridge from the train station was a magical moment for us,, and we got our first glimpse of Venice's legendary beauty.  We were actually in Venice!!!  The Grand Canal splits Venice in two and then there are a plentitude of little canals everywhere.  The sight of the weathered buildings lined against the canals was just breathtaking.  We thought it was so gorgeous and loved seeing the boats and gondolas making their way across the canals.

For dinner, we ate at an outdoor cafe.  We'd learned already that you essentially just sit at a table and catch the waiter's eye while doing it.  We were absolutely pumped to have our first Italian meal--pasta!  I ordered a glass of wine and noticed the $2.50 euro service charge for the pleasure of simply eating at this restaurant.  The waiter marched up to our table and delivered our first stone-faced "prego" ("please"), meaning "please don't ask me any questions or expect me to greet you, and just order now."

Two older ladies sat down at the table next to us, and we quickly learned that they were from northern California.  They were very friendly and we chatted with them for awhile.  Fifteen minutes after they sat down, the waiter "prego"-ed them, too, and one lady ordered a bowl of soup.  The other lady wasn't feeling well and didn't want anything.  Our waiter wanted none of that and demanded "Then, you must drink something.  You can't sit here with just soup."  Keep in mind this was about 9pm on a Tuesday night with his restaurant half full.  And the soup was 8 euros with a 2.50 service charge.  The lady ordered bottled water because, of course, they don't serve you any free tap water.
After dinner, we stopped at one of the many gelato stands and tried our first Italian gelato.  It was pretty good and actually reasonably priced.  Exhausted, we headed back to the hotel.

The next day, we spent about 6 hours walking around Venice.  We started out the day sharing a pizza at a place next to the Grand Canal.  Then, we started wandering.  We weren't headed anywhere in particular...just wanted to discover the different parts of the city.  Crossing over little bridges and narrow canals, we explored the more hidden, local section.  There were kids walking around on break, and art students sketching landscapes on the grass or canal.  
It seemed like around every corner, there was a new, uncovered part of the city.  It was all so gorgeous.  The buildings were between 2-5 stories and rustic, seemingly abandoned.  For some reason, it didn't feel lived in.  The whole thing felt like a big movie set.  It was so beautiful, but cold somehow, and didn't feel real.

Sauntering alongside the edge of the island, we watched the boats cruise on the sea. This area had some lovely little cafes and people outside chatting.  Edging further, we came upon the main square in Venice--Piazza San Marco.  Lined with a church (St Mark's Basilica) and staggering museums and, of course, crammed with tourists, this square was overwhelming.  We sat down for a minute and studied the astronomical clock on top of one of the museums.  For all of you non-pagans out there, you'll be happy to know neither of us could remember that elusive 12th Zodiac sign.  (It was Capricorn...figures.)

One thing we really enjoyed about the whole experience is there isn't a whole lot to do in Venice.  You simply walk around, eat, shop, and maybe visit a museum.  After so much on our itineraries in other locations, this was a welcome break.  There's plenty of ways to spend your money--the Venetians guarantee that--but we weren't in a hurry to do too much but just enjoy the scenery and food.  Other tourists definitely let the money flow--a 40 minute gondola ride along a canal cost 80 euros--and the gondolas always were running!  The people on them never looked too happy, though.  They were pretty bored and probably pissed about spending so much for a rude guy in a striped shirt.

Then, we made a big mistake.  We tried to go towards a specific destination.  The sun was heading down, and we wanted to eat dinner somewhat near the train station, so we wouldn't have to navigate in the dark.  We would soon find out that Venice is essentially a labyrinth.  Dozens of narrow alleys curve and twist, so streets seem to change every 20 feet.  And keeping with the greedy spirit of Venice, free maps are simply not available anywhere.  Tourists must pay for a map and it didn't even really help them--everybody looked puzzled walking down the streets and we heard many a "are we going the right way" or "did we take a wrong turn again?" 

For us, we soon discovered an indisputable fact that all roads lead to Hotel Scandinavia.  We had been in a square near Piazza San Marco, trying to find our way near the train station.  I told Chris that I was pretty sure we had been on this road before.  By this point, all roads look really similar (shops, cafes, gelato places, etc) but I had remembered a few key landmarks, including Hotel Scandinavia, because I thought the name was strange in Venice.  Sure enough, we passed those landmarks which led us back to Hotel Scandinavia.  We went a different way (for a fourth time), and ended up at...Hotel Scandinavia!  This has a rather maddening formula, but thankfully we were just able to laugh hysterically at the ridiculousness of it along the way.

Finally, we made it through the maze and near the train station.  We had given up on finding a lovely spot for dinner at this point, and just chose a place in the center.  Gelato had already been consumed during our time earlier walking in circles, so we decided to skip it post-dinner. :)

We had one more day in Venice, and for lunch, we dined at an over-priced, touristy spot by the Grand Canal.  This was my idea because I thought it would be nice and romantic to eat by the water.  I was mistaken.  It was crowded and the waitstaff just wanted you to buy an expensive meal and leave quickly.  After the stiff "prego" introduction, which we were just accustomed to by this point, we again got a dissapointed "is that all?" face after we ordered our meal.  You begin to feel like a faceless big bag of money just waiting to be shuffled about.  As the waiter cleared our meal, a gust of wind blew (like it had been all morning) and knocked the bread into my forehead.  The waiter snickered and said "it was the wind, not me."  Nice.  Then, another waiter brought the final bill out and actually asked about a tip.  Please note that most Venice restaurants, including this one, have a service charge already included.  Plus, in most of Europe you don't really tip--it's included in the price of your meal.  When the waiter asked if he should put the tip on the credit card or if we would leave cash, we mentioned the service charge.  He said that was just a tax.  We signed the credit card slip for only our bill amount (no tip) and left.

The whole experience left us jaded.  We didn't want to interact with anyone because we were so tired of unfriendly, greedy attitudes.  Leaving the crowds, we walked around the perimeter of the island again and grabbed fresh bread, cheese, and water for a picnic on some church steps.  It was quiet and picturesque, which is what we needed.

We decided to leave Venice shortly thereafter and head back to Mogliano Veneto for dinner.  Since it's a small suburb, we thought we could find a quaint restaurant with warm people and good Italian food.  The front desk man recommended a place nearby the hotel and instructed us to tell them "Walter sent us."  Hopeful, we entered the restaurant and were promptly taken into a separate room by ourselves.  Other tourists slowly trickled in afterwards, and we realized that all the foreigners were being herded together yet again.  Walter is a busy man.  And some things just never change, I guess.

No, we never found great Italian food.  And yes, we were disappointed with our experience in Venice.  It was very beautiful, but the impersonal behavior of everyone there left us feeling jaded.  We've learned that everyone's opinions of a place are always skewed by their personal experiences.  So, maybe other people found an "in" somehow and like Venice.  Or maybe they were willing to spend $100 on a meal and $80 on a gondola ride, and that simply met their expectations.  Regardless, Venice is not a place in which we are eager to return.  If circumstances change, like we find a great contact there, then maybe we'd consider it.  But otherwise, as several other tourists later shared with us, it feels shallow and empty... a "city with no pulse."