Venice, Italy

Arrived in Venice later in the evening on Wednesday the 13th. Our orginal hostel failed, but they gave us a number to another hostel. I called, but the lady didn't speak any English, but after a few minutes I booked a room. The place was awful though. Terrible service and the place smelled like crap, literally. Matt and I woke up at 6am to the sun beaming through the no-curtained windows. At around 7am, construction next door kept us up for the rest of the day. We checked out as soon as possible and with great difficulty found another hostel. It was 10x better and the guy at reception was very sympathetic with our awful experience the night before. Without further ado, we headed towards St. Mark's Square. We took the boat bus down the Grand Canal, which was pretty cool. Gondola's were definitely out of the budget (around 80 Euro a ride). Walked into St. Mark's Square and immediately went into St. Mark's Cathedral. We weren't supposed to take photos, but everyone seemed to disregard that request so I took some as well. Cathedrals have become the norm for me traveling throughout Europe, but it has been a pleasure exploring the myriad of churches. We then decided to just walk around the maze-like streets and canals. The streets are consumed with shops and pestering men trying to sell useless trinkets and ripped off designer bags. The shops are full of pricey clothes and blown glass from Murano Island (just a short boat ride north of Venice). The narrow streets and canals have a lot of character. They were a blast to walk through. We checked out a few bars at night just to get a tiny taste of the night life. We enjoyed a much needed quiet night of sleep. We left for Rome on Friday.