It's Not Delivery, It's Buongiorno!

As much as this trip has been great, being sick and traveling internationally had taken its toll. Hallie witnessed this by waking up to me lying in bed blasting “Born in the USA”. However I ended up sucking it up and going out to explore Florence. Luckily, we were surrounded by more Americans here than anywhere else on the trip combined. 

Florence has a massive amount of high end shopping, beautiful art (Renaissance started here) and gelaterias everywhere (also origin spot). 

Gatti Gelati

Michaelangelo's David

The trip from Florence to Venice was quite the treat as we finally had our own seats again! Friend update: we did make a new train friend who coughed at least one of his lungs up (violent coughs every 14 seconds, four feet away from us) and perhaps gave one or both of us the plague. Venice is as beautiful as everyone says it is, of course, however a little more commercialized than we thought. Our hotel is nestled in a corner on a canal with a spectacular view from our window. 

View from balcony

View from balcony

The commercialization is only really an issue in the “touristy” areas as you can easily escape them and get lost meandering through tiny streets with plenty of local cafes, restaurants and shops. We found the best two Italian restaurants within a few blocks from our hotel (that we ate at back to back).

Hallie kept wanting to buy these masks that were everywhere?

One of the many dead ends we came to

More locals than we thought

Typical Venetian canal

They even cut the crust off for us!

This post has to stay a little short though as internet has still been a massive issue (non existent) at our hotels and we are at some deserted cafe with some Indian man screaming at someone on the phone in Punjabi. 

And no, sorry, we did not ride in the Gondolas. It was far too cold and expensive for the EuroSavers!

The hotel tonight is another overnight train to Munich! Next post to include snaps of beers and sausages.