Venice

This morning we had a quick breakfast before grabbing our bags and leaving the hotel by 8am. We were heading to a bridge nearby to catch the bus to the station. We got to Florence Termini by 8.50 and waited until our train arrived just before 9.30am.

We loaded our luggage onto carriage #7 and went towards our seats. Our seats had been pre-booked and paid for months in advance so there shouldn't have been a problem. However, for some reason, Italians (and a group of three who we thought we Russian) don't think they need to sit in their allocated seats. We were all meant to be seated together but we weren't because they refused to move. I had to hold my best Italian words on the tip of my tongue but I thought how rude!!

Anyway, we made it to Venice after a 2 hour train ride. Our next task was to load our luggage into two separate water taxis. If you can imagine the most pristine timber boat with leather seats, that was our ride. The drivers weren't too impressed with the amount of cargo but they got us to our location. We offloaded the luggage to dry land and walked to our hotel.

As it was before 2pm we couldn't check in so left our luggage in the storeroom and went for a walk to find some lunch. We had lunch just around the corner in Piazza della Santa Maria Formosa. We came back and checked in. The kids went to their rooms briefly before we asked them to gather their laundry because we were going to make a quick trip to the laundromat!

After an hour or so we returned to the hotel for some downtime before going out to dinner at 7pm.

Tomorrow we will walk around Venice to get our bearings and see some sights.

Below is a photo of some of the kids in the water taxi!!