"Venice - No Other Place Like It On... " a Venice Travel Page by timtrina

Our first Visit to Venice was in late December 2003, when we had booked in for 4 nights to experience the New Year in San Marco square. Those of you who have read our homepage, might remember the story about trying to find our hotel - it was an absolute nightmare. We parked our car, hopped on a Vaporetti (with all of our luggage), and headed for the San Marco stop (as this is where we thought would be the easiest to navigate from). Upon arrival, we were greated by a very large man, with his hair up in a ponytail. He asked us if we would like him to escort us to our hotel (as he said he knew the address). He was going to charge us 50 Euros - and looking back - we should've accepted. We didn't trust anyone, so declined the offer (50 Euros = $ 80 Australian Dollars). We walked and walked - dragged 6 pieces of luggage over bridges, around corners - all in the rain. It was absolutely horrid - our daughter was getting tired, and we had just about had enough. About 3 1/4 hours later, we ran into the same man, who was escorting a group of tourists to their hotel. "Signore" he yelled to my husband "it's over THAT way". To cut a long story short, it took us 3 1/2 hours of madness to finally arrive at our hotel - and weren't we GLAD to put the suitcases down!

This was as magical as we expected. Everyone was happily sipping on mini champagne bottles (through a straw!), and we all gathered in San Marco square. We sat underneath the historical bell tower, and watched as about 5 groups of people were working their own fireworks! People were throwing "crackers" at other peoples feet - totally harmless, but scares the hell out of you if you don't expect it. The countdown to New Years that night, we will never forget. No fighting (which we had actually expected with so much alcohol involved) - just happy, happy people celebrating the New Year.

About 1/3 of the way into our holiday, Tim's mother flew over to join us in Florence. As a surprise, we told her we were taking her to Pisa. About 4 1/2 hours later (and after driving through the crazy traffic in Bologna), we come to a huge sign which says "Venezia". Tim's mother said - "Oh - we're near Venice" - but still thought we were going to Pisa - she was way to easy to convince! Upon arrival, we were greated with the most beautiful weather, and she had a smile from ear to ear - couldn't stop jumping up and down with joy! We're so glad we came back to visit again, because we got some awesome sunset shots we didn't have the chance to take a few weeks before. (Like the top picture of this intro)