Honeymoon in Italy 2023 – Day 4 (On to Venice!)

Trains and Water Buses

We took the 9:20am train from Florence to Venice. Good thing we pre-booked, as the train was packed! It’s only a 2 hour and 15 minute train ride, with brief stops in Bologna, Ferrara, and Padova.

Once we arrived in Venice, we took a vaporetto (water bus) from the train station to our hotel (Hotel Cà d’Oro), which is charming. We discovered the hotel has a side-canal dock, so we planned to book a water taxi to pick us up and take us to the train station when it’s time to leave.

It’s Always Eating Time When You’re In Italy

After freshening up a bit, we wandered around in search of a snack. We got gelato at Bacaro del Gelato (very good!), then got chicchetti (small happy hour bites) next door at Vino Vero. Vino Vero is a nice little wine bar with a good selection of wine and very tasty cicchetti. I had polpo (octopus) on a bed of avocado, and Teresa had curry chicken on a bed of cucumber and dill. Both were delicious.

Cicchetti are small, flavorful snacks or small plates traditionally served in Venetian bars known as bacari. They’re essentially Venetian tapas. For a fun and light dinner, skip the restaurants and go from bacari to bacari to sample the cicchetti.

Since our bags were overflowing with stuff we bought in Florence, we boxed up a bunch of gifts (and dirty clothes!) and shipped them home via DHL. It wasn’t cheap – $180 Euro – but worth it! Once that was taken care of, we did some more wandering and shopping. We walked across the Rialto Bridge then had more gelato at a spot across from Bar Al’Arco (my favorite cicchetti spot, which was already closed by the time we got there, so we’ll go another day).

Hotel Rooftop with a Free Thunder and Lightning Show

We ended the evening on the roof of our hotel, with one of the bottles of wine we bought in Florence at Osteria Pastella. (I *knew* they wouldn’t make it home!) The rooftop was lovely, with a nice view of the side canal. We were joined by a couple from Michigan (but they used to live in Walnut Grove, near Sacramento!) They informed us the hotel sells bottles of wine, so we bought a bottle of Prosecco to share. Then the clouds rolled in and were were given a thunder and lightning show! We moved back to our room once the rain started, opened the windows, and fell asleep to the sounds of rain and thunder.