Riding a Gondola in Venice

I don’t know where to start with this blog post. First of all, today was a magical day and also painful. Never wear uncomfortable high heels in Venice, actually, never wear heels in Venice in general, period.

We took the bus to Venice early in the morning and ended up eating our breakfast on the bus so that we would avoid a lot of crowds in Venice. As soon as I arrived, I got amazed by the water canals and started taking photo of every single thing I found fascinating, like a real tourist lol. I was so amazed of this town and how it was “designed”. No cars, just boats. Venice is quite bigger than I thought it would be. Perhaps that’s because we were walking a lot today. We ended up heading to St Mark’s Square (Piazza San Marco) and went up to the St Mark’s Tower to watch the view. Of course it was a long queue when we arrived (boo) but it only lasted for 30 minutes then we were good to go. The cost of going up the tower was €8 each.

We headed back down and that’s when my feet were killing me. The heels I was wearing were new and I hadn’t really walked with them a lot so I wasn’t sure if they were comfortable or not. I had to buy new shoes right away. We walked around a bit but no shoe places anywhere. We passed so many before we arrived to the square but now…nothing. After some while I ended up finding a few shops. Found a pair of shoes in my size (I didn’t care how they looked like, that’s how desperate I was) bought them and wore them right away. They looked alright but after like 1 hour of walking the insoles were sliding off somehow and when I took out my foot I noticed that the glue had melted off due to the heat. Cheap ass shoes indeed. Nothing I could’ve done I just had to deal with it the rest of the day (ended up throwing them when I got back).

Josh’s friend recommended a restaurant to eat in Venice and apparently they had meatballs in their menu! We got lost a few times but it took us a good hour to find it. When we finally arrived we saw a notice outside the door saying that the restaurant wont be open from mid July till end of August. I was really sad because I wanted my meatballs (sob) we ended up going into a random restaurant nearby and had some spaghetti bolognese and it was amazing.

After that we ended up strolling around the area and enjoying the weather and the view. I always wanted to ride a Gondola ever since I was a little girl but the pricing of the 20 minute ride was ridiculous. The charge was €80 (daytime) to ride one. I am not sure if you need to pay more if there are more people than two on it though. We ended up going on one in the end and I must say it was worth it to me. Not because of my childhood dream coming through but the view and the canals were just so fascinating. All these buildings have a history and it was amazing to see all of that from the Gondola. I am happy that we went on one in the end.

After that we decided to walk around the area once again, eat ice cream and take more photos. After some time, we decided to go back to the flat and have dinner around here instead. We had been walking since early in the morning and it was 6 PM when we decided to go back. My feet are still hurting from today and I just wanted to throw those shoes away and clean my feet from the glue of the shoes I got on me.

I changed my outfit for the evening to feel a bit more fresh (lol) all that walking earlier made me uncomfortable in that dress. So we decided to take more photos and then find a place to eat. We went to a different place this time and they had some interesting things on their menu. I decided to get a eggplant pizza (I told  them to add dried beef on top of it to make it my own version) it was really good. I enjoyed it a lot. Josh ordered a funny looking hamburger that looked like a sandwich somehow. He enjoyed it regardless. After that we decided to head back and here I am writing this. It was a long day indeed but it was a memorable one.

Can’t wait to head to Lido di Venezia tomorrow!

– Siara