Gondola

day 61 // venice

Woke up to yet another gorgeous day in the even more gorgeous city of Venice. This morning we had to pack up and check out of our rooms before breakfast. A big group of us decided to skip the scheduled tour today and go on our own instead! We walked to the Grand Canal where we did what we had been wanting to do the whole trip, gondola rides. Each boat carried up to 6 people so we divided up into mini groups and went out on the water accompanied by our cute little gondola man sporting his striped shirt and hat. It was just like the movies (minus the boyfriend/husband). But seriously, even with 4 other girls in the boat we all couldn't get over how romantic it was. He paddled us around for about a half an hour and it was just so relaxing. I took tons of pictures. When our time was up we returned to our starting point and he helped us off the boat and back on to land. Then we walked around exploring the little shops and food stands in the area. We couldn't resist the crepes, so we went for round 2 today. Hands-down one of my absolute favorite treats. We did a little shopping and all got matching hand-blown glass beaded bracelets. YAY FRIENDSHIP BRACELETS. Then we had to head back towards the hotel because the water-bus was departing soon. We grabbed some quick lunch on the way home and had a little extra time so we sat down in a cute little square and listened to these 2 guys play songs on their "instruments". By instruments I mean like 50 wine glasses filled with different amounts of water. They played songs from Titanic and all different recognizable tunes. It was incredible. Then we grabbed our luggage and headed for the water-bus meeting point. We all sat on the edge of the water as we waited and I realized how sad I was to be leaving Venice. We lucked out with the most perfect weather and everything and I didn't want to leave. But I guess going back to Florence wasn't too shabby either ;) After a quick ride on the water-bus, we boarded the real, land bus back to Florence. After a sleepy 4 hours we were home! As we walked back home from the train station, Heidi and I spotted a never-before-seen juice place and absolutely had to stop. We decided to just do dinner there, but since they couldn't do salads or wraps because of temporary kitchen problems, we just got two smoothies each for our meal. First we got a green veggie juice followed by a creamy avocado fruit smoothie. THEY WERE HEAVENLY. We couldn't get over how delicious they were and how we had never noticed the place before. We decided to make it a tradition that we would go after returning every bus trip since it's right on our way home from the station. As you already know, Heidi's family has been here the last couple weeks so she has been with them, so we were both excited to be back together drinking our healthy juices again and catching up on everything we had missed. Then we headed home, where I started to unpack and finished uploading and editing photos from the weekend so that I could share my weekend in the always beautiful Venice with you. Enjoy the photos - I posted pictures on Thursday, Fridays, and Saturday's posts too so be sure to check all of them out because they are some of my favorite pictures to date!! I am so excited for this week - I cannot believe my mom will be here in THREE DAYS. And my aunt in 5! I've been oozing with pure excitement this whole weekend in anticipation. Okay I'll stop. NOW you can enjoy the photos.