Florence & Venice

We arrived in Florence Friday afternoon. It had been a crazy drive there and we were glad to finally be parked and on our feet. (I've decided that driving in Florence makes Utah drivers look REALLY good!)

We didn't have very much daylight left when we got to Florence so we don't have many pictures to share. We stopped by the Ponte Veccio. (A famous bridge there with shops all along the top of it.) We enjoyed walking along the river and across the bridge and then up the the Piazzale Michelangelo a terrace above the city that gave a wonderful view of the town and also had a replica of the David statue in it. We enjoyed more pizza in Florence, but the gelato shops were all closed by the time we finished dinner so we had to pass on that for the rest of the night! Too bad! :(

We drove on to Bologna for the night. What a bunch of Bologna! We had a hard time finding our way around and finding a hotel to stay in. (We'd recommend booking your hotels in advance!) We finally found one for a pretty penny and got a short night sleep before waking up Saturday morning to drive the rest of the way to Venice.

We were so happy to finally get to Venice, drop off the rental car, and get onto the island! It was so pretty! (Hey, have you noticed that we haven't been in coats for any of these pictures? The weather in Italy was lovely and the coldest it got was jacket weather when we were in the shade or in the evenings.)

Of course, we had pizza there too! YUMMY!
We spent a lot of time just walking around the streets (that are mainly pedestrian streets) and exploring the town. The buildings here were also so amazing. They were just like what I've seen in so many movies - how magical!We had to stop by the Piazza San Marco. It was filled with more beautiful buildings, but Jared and Ira enjoyed the pidgeons the most! (For me, I just lived in fright that I was going to get pooped on again! But, I was lucky enough that it didn't happen.) The boys had so much fun feeding the birds and letting them land on them.
I'm guessing that one of their favorite parts was the scaring the birds part! It was so funny!
We spent a while shopping for souvenirs too. Rachelle, Ira and I got sweatshirts and Jared got a t-shirt. (The sweatshirts were too small and didn't have long enough sleeves for him - poor guy!)

I was amazed at how much water their was everywhere on the island. I should have expected that, but was still shocked by it all. We crossed too many bridges to count and saw so much water. We even got to take a Water Bus a couple of times to get from place to place. One of my favorite parts was our gondola ride. It was a nice relaxing end to our afternoon in Venice. Our guide did a great job and pointed out a lot of historic buildings throughout the ride. He was even decked out in the stiped shirt and all.

We had a great time and enjoyed more gelato in Venice. For dinner Saturday night some of us were "pizza'd-out" so we tried some not so wonderful lasagna. The sad part is that the best part of that meal were the french fries that Rachelle ordered and shared with everyone. They tasted just like the best American french fries you've ever had. Now I can't stop craving them! :)

We stayed in a hotel in Mestre (on the mainland) that night and were able to walk around for a couple more hours on Sunday, before we had to head to the airport to fly back to England.

We really enjoyed our time in Italy! It was lots of fun and great company! We love you all and miss you a ton! We can't wait to see you. (Six more weeks!)