“Well, you had me from hello…”

Venice, from the first moment I saw you from the train station, I was gone. I am so in love with this city. We wake up and have a nice breakfast at our hotel and we make our way to the train station to catch the train to Venice Island. We get there and it is nice and sunny. There is a breeze blowing and it just feels like you are at the beach. We walk around and are just in awe of it all. It is so beautiful here. I don’t want to leave. The weather is so nice and it’s my kind of feel. Hustle and bustle some places and chill and slow in others. We then met up with Dr. Mulvaney and Steve for a personal tour of Venice which was amazing! I am so thankful they were there to help show us around! They were great and showed us some wonderful spots for food and gelato. I swear, some of the BEST, if not the best pizza and gelato I’ve ever had! We saw a couple of churches, climbed up to the top of one to see the whole island (and on a clear day, ours was a little hazy, you can see the Alps!), and Saint Mark’s Square. I love the symbol of St. Mark, the lion with wings. It’s so mythical and powerful. They also showed us how to use the bus system…now get this…the bus system here? BOATS. NO JOKE! This is my kind of city where the bus system is by boat. I love that. I could do this all day. Time doesn’t seem to exit and passes by easily. We checked out the Frari Basilica and it was so pretty. Luckily Dr. Mulvaney lent us some scarves so we could go inside since we were all wearing tank tops. They also told us about some of the history of Venice with the doges and the ways of the Venetians. It was so cool to learn some of those things and see it first-hand. I think half the time we were walking around, my mouth was gaping open at the beauty and just chill feeling of this city. We rode up the Grand Canal finally and made our way back to the train station, but not before we checked out where the locals go. We stopped to get something to drink as it was hot today! We saw the part of the city where there were mainly just locals which was so cool. I hate feeling like a tourist and love seeing what the culture is like without them even though I am one. Ha. Another thing is that we saw a lot of Italians with coats and scarves on even though it was really hot outside. The Italians we learned believe that if a breeze blows on your neck, you’ll get sick. Maybe that’s why I started getting a cold…

This is definitely somewhere I would love to live or have a second home here. It just feels good to be here and it’s like going to Ocracoke; you are on island time and you can’t help but just want to sit down and soak in the sun and the water and the people.

So a week has passed since we left and London and the US feels forever ago. Prague is only a couple of days away and I really don’t know how it will compare but I know they will be two totally different feels but I have fallen in love for sure already with Venice.