Venice has been fun but there really is limited stuff to do...except of course shopping could go on forever if you have a big enough wallet!! Did you know that there are over 400 bridges in Venice? It's really pretty neat to be walking down some narrow alley and all of a sudden you come upon a bridge. Some bridges may be only be 5-10 steps and then you are across.
Got our water bus back to the train station and then we were off to Florence. The trains are wonderful except for one thing...the bathrooms are disgusting. Whatever you do, pay the .80 Euro to use the toilet/water closet at the train station. :-)
When arriving in Florence, we walked out of the train station and you could see to the right the most amazing cathedral that I have ever seen. It was the Basilica of Santa Maria. It is breath taking. The tiles used are colored, so from the outside it looks like what you might see on the inside. Supposedly it has the largest brick dome in the world. Can't wait to see the inside.
One more new tip on traveling: get international service on your iPhone or other type of smart
phone. Why you ask? It is your very best way to navigate through the cities. Even with the local maps that your hotel will give you, it can be difficult to understand the road system. Taxi drivers are on strike here so instead of waiting in at least a 30-40 minute taxi queue, we decided to use our phone GPS and walk to the hotel. It worked great!
Okay, I won't be as long winded today. It's 12:10 am here and we just finished dinner at 11:00 pm!! The cities come alive around 8:30 pm. Tomorrow we are off to climb the Leaning Tower of Piazza.
Ciao!
