it was some insane early time in the morning and we were dragging our extremely heavy bags down the pier at venice. we stuffed them onto a bus and boarded. we planned to take the public transportation (vaporetti) to the hotel, since we had no desire to pay all that money for a water taxi again. the bus took us to the last point in venice that allows motorized ground vehicles, piazza roma. we had trouble finding the vaporetti station, but eventually did. i was feeling self-conscious looking for an ATM and figuring out where to go. a ticket agent for the vaporetti was helpful. she told nicki where to find an ATM, and then told me a good route to take. i’d chosen one route, but she informed me of one that went along the same route (winding through the grand canal), but made fewer stops.

we had to go to piazza san marco (st. mark’s square). the hotel was just a few blocks from the station adjacent to the square. this was on the opposite side of town as where we were, so on the vaporetti we went. it was still relatively early, perhaps 8:00am on a saturday, and the boat was perhaps half-filled. we still felt silly, though, with all our luggage. it’s way too much!

within a half an hour, we were at st. mark’s square. we’d received a map of venice while still on board, including the vaporetti stations, and i’d mapped out our relative positions between the pier and the location of the hotel using google maps online. using the map, we dragged our heavy-ass luggage up and down a bridge, and through the narrow streets of venice immediately west of the square. up a few streets north, and then we made a left what looked like an alley (but was just another street) and made our way to our final honeymoon home: the locanda antica venezia.

um, ok. it wasn’t what we were expecting. ever seen a hotel? y’know, it has a lobby, and the usual things? not this place. the front door was locked. you had to be buzzed in.

we rang the bell and were buzzed in. we dragged all our luggage into the lobby, which was nothing more than a concrete and brick room. stairs led upstairs, with a sign saying that the hotel was on the third floor (piano is italian for floor or level).

there were no elevators. we were going to be dragging these heavy bags up three flights. nicki chose to ascend the stairs to check in and see if we could get help, and to see if a room was available. i stayed in the dungeon lobby and snapped a couple of pictures. it sounded like a dungeon, with the sound of water (ubiquitous in venice, of course) flowing somewhere underneath.

here’s the front door, from within the lobby.

soon enough, i could hear nicki huff and puff down the stairs.

“the third floor is more like the eighth floor,” she informed me breathlessly.

she then informed me that a room isn’t available yet, and that the bellboy isn’t due in for another couple of hours. we had to bring our luggage up ourselves, but they’ll keep it for us until our room could be ready, about midday. lovely.

we needed three trips up and down to haul our luggage up. she was right. each floor took four flights of stairs to ascend. it was a lot to handle. however, we did it, and chose to spend the time available to us out and about. it was a saturday morning in venice and we were tired, but eager to see more. first we wandered north, and found a hotel serving breakfast in an outdoor cafe. this was the first of many hotels we would see in venice that seemed more ornate than the one we were staying in. at this point, we didn’t care much.

we had a growing feeling of ‘the end’ looming over us. it was the final weekend of our honeymoon. it was back to reality in a few days’ time: jobs, bills, dog poop. as excited we were to be in venice, we found we both felt strongly that we almost just wanted to get ‘the end’ over with. i knew i felt it strongly, and was a little hesitant to share that with her. when i did, i was relieved to learn she felt the same way. we’d had amazing adventures, and wanted to have more in venice. we were ecstatic about being there, but felt impatient about the impending inevitable conclusion. we knew, though, that it shouldn’t spoil our time in venice. it was a prime time for carpe diem. live in the moment, and enjoy the present. and at the present, we were in venice. “ah, venice,” indiana jones said in the third movie. that’s what echoed in my mind that weekend.

after breakfast we visited piazza san marco. it’s the heart of venice, with good reason. the buildings are spectacular, and the feeling you get while you’re there steals your breath away.

here are some pictures of the campanile, the basilica, the clock tower, and all the other stuff and people…and the pigeons…the pigeons are everywhere. in chicago, the pigeons give you a dirty look if you go near them. in venice they hang with you. in fact, they’ll stand on you. if you feed them, they will swarm at you, standing on your head, your shoulders, your arms. neither of us attempted this feat. many a time we’d see a tourist screaming as she was attacked by eager pigeons. other times, the tourist was perfectly calm and posed for pictures with the flock of disgusting birds. they are not definitely not the pigeons we’re used to.

the bridge of sighs:

the clock tower (it actually works):

notice the pigeon in this shot of the clock tower:

we waited in line for a while to get in the basilica, ignoring the no-backpack rule. as we neared the front of the line, we noticed that the no-bags rule was being enforced. there was a place nearby where you could store them, but i had all of our electronics in my back pack. i wasn’t going to part with it. by this time, it was just after eleven, and we figured our room might be ready. we agreed to return to the basilica after checking in. we returned to our hotel, climbed the millions of stairs, and learned our room was available. room 8. well, then. what a tiny room it was. the tiniest of them all.

it was even smaller, slightly, than our room on the ship.

notice that the walls are covered in fabric, as opposed to wallpaper. precisely the same fabric (and pattern) as the bedding. our view was also the least interesting of all the views we had.

once checked in, we were tired. we took a nap until mid-afternoon. after that, we freshened up and headed north, away from st. mark’s and into the middle of the city.

the streets are narrow, and the bridges are many across the small canals. there are streets that are actually tunnels underneath buildings. the only breaks between buildings occur when there is a waterway or you’ve reached a public square.

churches usually accompany the public squares.

otherwise it is street after labyrinthine street.

we made our way up to the rialto bridge, spanning the grand canal in the center of venice. not unlike ponte vecchio in florence, this bridge holds a significant historical importance to the city.

in a city of hundreds of bridges, this one is the big papa of them all.

the view is spectacular.

one of my favorite pictures of the entire honeymoon were taken on rialto bridge.

on the other side, we stopped for pictures before we stopped for a few glasses of wine.

after a few glasses of wine, we walked vaguely back down the way we came. we ended up on the other side of st. mark’s, walking down the lagoon, romantic summer night and everything, and was sucked into a restaurant by a very nice fellow. we ate outside, facing the lagoon, and soaked in the beauty of the night. the meal was pasta and wine again, but we didn’t care. without a doubt, venice is one of the most romantic places we’ve ever been to. you can almost taste the magic. the venetian moon reflected in the eyes of my wife is a vision i’ll not soon forget. we walked through st. mark’s and back to the hotel. it was a good night.

the next morning we slept in a little. we ate breakfast in the hotel, as it was provided in the upstairs dining room (a tiny room). we then returned once again to st. mark’s and to the basilica. we toured the basilica, which was amazing. supposedly, the relics of st. mark are there. crazy.

from there, we ventured southwest to the accademia, a museum of pre-1800s venetian art. finally, hehe, a museum. oh, and by the way, whenever i give a direction, take it with a grain of salt. venice is situated on a weird angle relative to the true directions, and the streets themselves can go in any given direction. there is no rhyme or reason whatsoever. for my own sanity, i defined st. mark’s and the lagoon as ’south central’ venice, and worked out where to go from that slightly imprecise definition.

anyway, on our way to accademia, we stopped for lunch. as we sat, i noticed a young woman sitting near us. she had shorts on, but they down entirely from her butt. you could see more than just a glimpse of her underwear. i was genuinely perplexed more than titillated. no, really.

“why is she doing that?” i asked.
“i don’t know,” nicole replied, almost dismissively. as far as i could guess, it couldn’t be comfortable. they weren’t on, they weren’t off. they were just, i dunno, there. it was weird. i snapped one photo of this woman’s weird choice.

was it intentional? accidental? oh well, i’ll never know. i just thought it was extremely strange behavior. what the hell. there are worse choices women could make for themselves, i suppose.

anyway, so the accademia was interesting. we moved from there and headed back towards the direction of rialto bridge, as there was tons of shopping there. it was our last day and nicki got her shop on. she almost bought a very fashionable purse for something like 800 euros, but ultimately decided that the idea was a little too selfish. on our way back towards st. mark’s, we enjoyed a kebab (it wasn’t as good as the one in como) in one of the public squares. our shared kebab caught the interest of a venetian.

the dog was extremely well behaved. it wasn’t a stray, it had tags and a bandage on one of its rear feet. it responded to our american-sounding “no” when it seemed to beg too much. it was very courteous and well-trained. so much so that nicki fed it some kebab meat. she also gave it some pita, which it turned its nose up at. an interesting looking dog, and well-behaved. we suddenly missed chloe.

back at st. mark’s, the pigeons were having all kinds of fun.

in place of a gondola ride, nicole wanted to dine at harry’s bar for our final dinner in italy. it’s a place well known for its celebrity sightings, and came recommended to her from someone. in the end, we found it to be overhyped. we didn’t see any celebrities (although a table near us included some unknown VIPs of some sort.). the food was also wildly overpriced. a bottle of water was 12 euros!!! yeah, we spent about $400 american that night, and it really wasn’t worth it. the food was just okay. the service was indeed stellar, though, and the desserts were to die for. however, i’ve paid a quarter of that amount for the same sort of experience. if we ever return to harry’s bar, i’ll do it to have a drink at the bar, but that’s about it.

and, well, that’s it, really. we walked around st. mark’s one last time.

this is our last photo of our honeymoon, taken after dinner that night.

we returned to the hotel and packed up. we only had a few hours to sleep.

we woke up at 3:30 in the morning to find that no one was manning the front desk. we were locked in. nicki had asked me to ask about that before we went to bed, but i forgot. she was beginning to panic as i frantically tried to pool together enough money to pay for the internet access i’d used (i already knew the amount), slip it into our key box, and then locate a key to unlock the front gate leading downstairs. it took me ten minutes to find a key–nicki was frantic and angry at me. i eventually found the key and we unlocked the door–more or less on schedule. we returned to the vaporetto station with time to spare. we waited to catch the first boat shuttle to marco polo airport, which departed at 4:00am. it took us an hour to arrive at the dock outside the airport. it was a seven minute walk to the terminal, and once again we were dragging tons of luggage. we arrived, checked in, ate breakfast, and waited for our plane. we didn’t have to wait too long before we boarded our plane to milano. the plane took off on time, around 7am. we connected in milan to our flight home, which was long and awful. it departed at about 11am, so i’m glad our first flight was on time. anyway, i remember little of it, to be honest. way back in the first post about the honeymoon, i included what little i wrote on that flight, about twenty minutes in. we slept, watched movies, listened to music, and that’s about it.

after an eternity, we arrived at home, smack dab in the middle of the afternoon. it’s weird, the time change. we’d been on the move for about twenty hours at that point. customs was slow but without incident. as soon as we grabbed our bags and a taxi, i began checking my messages. my parents chose to surprise us with a ride home–we were leaving o’hare in a taxi, they were circling the terminal! ahhh! we turned around, apologized to the cabbie, paid his fare and then some, loaded up in my parents’ van, and finally made it home. the doggies! the doggies were with us, too. that was very nice of them–we weren’t expecting to see them until the next day.

we ate lunch at fat willy’s (we actually hardly ate anything), my parents left, and we crashed.

and so ended our honeymoon. now we’re back in the real world. nicki almost got a new job and then decided to stay, she got a new car, i have a few writing projects on tap, i finally saw my favorite band in the world live, we’re beginning to learn about small businesses and how to run a bed and breakfast…in other words, we’ve begun our new lives together at a running pace!

special thanks at this point goes to tia maritza, for booking everything for our honeymoon! we love you!

and for anyone who has actually been paying attention to all of this, stay tuned, there’s so much more to come…