Italy - Venice

Goodbye Florence....Hello Venice!

We woke up early in the morning, had breakfast in the hotel, and then catch our train from Florence to ...... Venice!!!! The train ride was 2 hours but comfortable so it was pretty relaxing. When we were approaching Venice, I kept looking out the window to see Venice. I had been imagining how Venice look like, I know it's full of bridges and canals but as the train approaching the station, I couldn't fully paint Venice in my mind yet. Our train crossed a bridge but I still couldn't see the bridges and canals. Our train arrived Santa Lucia Railway Station, and we walked out of the train station. The moment I walked out the train station, it was a whole new world! I can finally see the turquoise lagoon and the famous Grand Canal, beautiful buildings like floating on water, very amazing!

Right outside the train station is the ACTV which runs the vaporetti (water buses). As long as you know the direction you are going and the vaporetto stop, it is very easy to figure out. We took line 1 and our vaporetto stop is Santa Maria del Giglio for 6.50 euros each person. The ride was around 30 minutes and it was like in a sightseeing cruise! Both sides of the canal were filled with amazing architectures and sights!

It was unbelievable to be in Venice; the atmosphere was truly unique, one of its kind in this world!

We booked two nights in Hotel Gritti Palace which is located right next to the stop Santa Maria del Giglio! The hotel was gorgeous and very charming! Our room was huge with beautiful decors and Murano Glass chandeliers!

Sitting area in our room with antique furnishings:

Our bed was extremely comfortable and felt like we were royals!

Murano Glass chandeliers!

Hotel lobby area, very grand and charming:

We quickly unpack our luggage and change because we booked our wedding photographer at 2 pm! Our photographer was on time and called us, we met him in our hotel room and what's better to start our photography session than in our beautiful well decorated room! (Sorry for the low-resolution pics, the originals were so big that took so much time to upload).

Really like this picture:

In front of our hotel entrance:

The store owner was friendly to let us to have some photos in her colorful shop:

Our photographer bought us around hidden spots in Venice:

Venice is a very romantic city!

Once again shop owner was very nice to lend us some expensive props!

We had a great time throughout our photography session! Our photographer is a local resident so he showed us all the hidden spots. Something you might not realized is...it was so cold! I had my jacket on when we were walking to the next photo location!

Our photography session lasted about 2 hours, we got hundreds of pictures from our photographer and delivered on the 2nd day :)

Once we were done, we went back to our hotel, change and then went out to eat! We were so hungry! We randomly picked a restaurant with English menu and ate there.  The food was just so-so though!