Like I stated in my earlier post, we had no plan once we got there so we decided to walk to our hotel instead of taking a water bus. We knew it was a bit far, but we wanted to stop along the way and take pictures. We didn't have a map and just followed the signed to San Marco (where our hotel was located) and it took about an hour (with stopping at the Rialto Bridge). Once we checked in, we dropped our bags and went back out.
Our first order of business was to find the pizza place we ate at the first time we were here. The slices are huge, cheap, and thick crust (so sick of thin crust pizza)! It took me no time and we were there. Alleluia...it was as good as I remembered. And because pizza wasn't enough, we each grabbed a scoop of gelato.
It started to rain pretty hard so we decided to take a break at the hotel for an hour. We let our feet have a breather and watched some BBC (Kevin watched it through his eyelids). Since it had gotten a bit colder, we put on our layers and headed back out. Our first stop was St. Mark's Square because I wanted some pictures at night, but since I am still learning the specific of my fancy new camera, they didn't turn out too great. I was able to get a few good ones at the Rialto Bridge though. I guess I better start studying for my next trip to Venice in March so I can get the shots I want.
After my unsuccessful attempt at taking some nighttime pictures, we decided to grab something to eat. We ended up walking around for an hour looking at menus, playing the game where neither of us want to make a decision. And it isn't like there are a lot of choices. We finally decided to drink our dinner. As we were walking by a bar by our hotel (checking out the food options), a friendly Ukrainian man told us to come in for a drink and we did. Kevin had a Spritz and I had some type of strawberry/champagne drink. And along with complimentary snacks, American Football was playing! We ended up staying for 3 drinks and met two other couples from Dallas.
As much as we wanted to stay all night, we knew we were in for a long night so we ordered a sandwich and headed towards St. Mark's Basilica. At about 9:30pm, the people started coming in herds so we hopped in line. Luckily, it wasn't too cold and we only had to wait until 11:00 for the doors to open. We found a seat, but I would say about 1,000 other people had to stand. Luckily for us, the mass booklet was written in four languages (including English) so even though we had no idea what anyone was saying, we could follow along. Mass was beautiful, but long. About an hour in, people started leaving (which I think is so rude) and those who didn't leave, were drifting in and out of sleep. The ones who stuck it out with us, ended up getting out of St. Mark's Basilica at about 1:45am. It was totally worth it though!
On Christmas Day, we woke up exhausted, but ready to get back out and explore the city. The weather was gorgeous...clear skies, sun shining. We actually had to take off our coats because it was so warm. And despite being Christmas Day, the streets were packed with lots of people and cameras. For the most part, we just walked around until we made our way back towards the train station. We decided to have a slice of pizza and a scoop of gelato to celebrate Jesus' birthday and then we were off.
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