Travel to Venice April 6, 2017

Top of the wall in Lucca
We woke up after a late night with family, ready to have breakfast,  pack and head back to the train station.   I wanted to walk on the wall that surrounds the city. It has a paved road on top that is only for bikes and walking.  It was a wonderful way to travel with luggage as well as take in some more sites of Lucca.

We boarded the same slow commuter train back to Florence but this time it wasn't crowded and made the trip about 30 minutes faster. We arrived in Florence station with over a 45 minute wait before catching the high speed train for Venice. We boarded car 8 to get ready for the trip. Would you believe two people were in our seats and wouldn't move. After 10 minutes of "discussion" they finally pulled out their tickets to show us they were right. Well they had the right seats, but in car 9, not car 8! Embarrassed, they quietly sulked away.

The train station in Venice was beautiful and facing the Grand Canal. Dad was grateful to see our hotel directly across the canal from the station, only a few minutes walk away. The hard part was having to cross a busy pedestrian bridge to get over to the other side. The bridge is tall and fairly steep and we had over 40 steps to climb  and 36 to descend with our suitcases.

The church next to our hotel
The hotel was right next to a church with a green dome. We were welcomed  by two super nice people at the desk. Alan and Dad were given a room on the 4th floor, and they took the elevator up to drop off their suitcases. The Desk Manager (Gionni) offered Bruce and myself a free room upgrade, which we gladly accepted.  

While we were checking in, another couple walked in behind us. They were older and spoke English, and were very upset. Apparently just after they crossed the bridge from the train station, her purse was stolen. She had it on top of her rolling suitcase, and while a guy distracted them, an accomplice ran up and grabbed it. It had her money, credit cards, passport, and more. As I told everyone before we left on this trip, you cannot be too careful with you stuff.

Our room was over in the next building, down an open alley. The building had a security touch pad to enter, closed circuit cameras watching the door and stairwell, and no elevator. We trudged our suitcases up two flights of stars to our "mini suit". It was large, had a canopy bed, a nice chair and desk, and beautiful bathroom. A nice, romantic room in a very romantic city!

We were all hungry so we left the hotel to find a restaurant.  We picked one nearby that had outdoor seating overlooking the canal. We ordered grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and French fries. except Alan who had chicken and a salad. Food was only okay and the French fries arrived after we ate our grilled cheese.  77 Eros for mediocre food. Wow!

We took a walk to find a public laundry (we were all running low on clean clothes) and then walked to Roma Square, which was a busy hub of Buses and Taxis and more. Here is where we will need to go to catch the People Mover to get to our cruise on Saturday.
On the way back to our hotel , we found a nice park to walk through and rested on a bench for awhile. In Venice, there are always a lot of people and pigeons, and we watched both for awhile. We headed back and Dad and Alan went for a rest. Bruce and I walked around looking for gelato place for dinner. We had told them how good Italian gelato is, and Dad was getting a bit anxious to eat some.

Dinner time came and we walked across the bridge for our gelato dinner.  It was super windy so we picked a place where we could sit inside. I enjoyed a scoop of coffee gelato, Bruce had mint chocolate, Alan had strawberry and dad picked Lemon.
The Gelato Shop
Afterwards we strolled through the street, checking out the shops and taking photos of the architecture. Soon it was time to turn in because tomorrow is our grand tour of Venice, and it will be another walking day.



The alleyway to our room



Our upgraded room.  Lovely




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