Venice part 1!

After a night in Milan (which was fine we didn't do much), we headed to the centrale station to catch our freccia train to Venezia!  We got there early and hung out at a little cafe, eating risotto and drinking americanos and water frizzante (Italian for "fuzzy").  I think a combination of smiling and tipping made us a few friends with the wait staff who came over and talked to us a bit.

We got to Venice and headed to our place for the first night, a nice small room in the less touristic district (sestiere) dorsoduro.  

You can see the cured ham we got from the store for less than 3 euros (we also got eggs for breakfast). It was so much better than any other cured meat from a store. 

That night we mostly wandered along the guidecca canal, and only ventured into the winding streets and alleys a little.  When we got in an took the water taxi around, there were six cruise ships at dock.  One headed up the canal by tug (one on each end) during our walking.

We were already falling in love with Venice, and we were really excited to get our next apartment, where we could unpack and stay for four nights.

Let's move to Venice!

Second day in Venice we just meandered with our bags waiting to check in at our next place.  

We found the square the apartment was on, Campo Santa Margarita, and sat to have some early afternoon lunch and drinking. A piadino, a seafood risotto and two spritz (refreshing mixed drink) later, we were feeling great.  We started looking for the address to our new place and noticed it was the cute building right across the square.  We met Nicolas, who was great and were ushered into our dream apartment, where we'd stay for four nights and attempt to return for the second week of the trip.