Days20-21 Venice

We left our family in Slovenia and drove our rental car to Venice. After dropping off the car 1 minute before it was due, we went to the airport to find out how to get to the islands of Venice. We ended up taking a bus to the edge of the mainland and then walked across a bridge to get to Venice. At this point we could have taken a water bus (vaparetto), but instead we decided to walk since it didn't look very far to our hotel. However, Venice is confusing with all the canals so we got lost, a few times. We did eventually find a good map and then found our way to our hotel. During our time in Venice we stayed at the Apostoli Palace. It has 12 rooms with each one named after one of the apostles. And we met a wonderful Italian man, Paul, who ran the front desk at the hotel.
Our first day in Venice we walked around to explore, do some shopping and of course get some gelatto. Then we had a funny mishap while trying to find a place for dinner. It was pouring down rain, after being 80 degrees just an hour before, and we had our trusty Rick Steves guide book and were trying to find a place he recommended. It wasn't until after searching for over 30 minutes did we find out the restaurant was closed because the owners were on vacation. And the sign was up above the restaurant and since it was raining we weren't looking up. We did find a different place to eat close to our hotel. During dinner we found out that we never want to eat anything "Venetian style." (It is squid cooked in it's own ink.) But we other seafood that was good and had a nice dinner together, with some gelatto for dessert.
Our second day we decided to take it slow, so Micah and I went off on our own and had a nice, relaxing day. In the morning we went to the Doge's Palace and spent a couple of hours there exploring. There were some interesting things to see such as torture devices, the prison and the beautiful palace rooms. And it was interesting to think of Venice as once being a world power. When we left the palace we took a vaparetto to the hotel to rest a bit. Then we went out to find a good place for lunch. I had a disappointing panini sandwich. But after lunch we met a lost Scottish couple and we had fun chatting with them a bit before we helped them find their way. We found some more gelatto, I found out they have a Nutella flavor yum yum. After walking around and exploring we went back to the hotel to meet up with Mom, Dad and Justin. We went to dinner together at a restaurant on one of the small canals. It was a nice dinner with even traveling musicians coming by and playing for us. And after dinner it was raining so we passed on going on a gondola ride, so instead we walked through St. Mark's Square and bid Venice good-bye. It was a nice end to our three week European adventure.