THIRD STOP: VENICE

VENICE

We started our journey to Venice later in the day then previously scheduled because we wanted to give the girls a little more time to rest their legs after two games in three days AND, more importantly, the coaches/staff had some last minute shopping to do:) Neither party objected.  It was a five hour bus ride to Mestri, Itay, where our hotel was actually located.  After a quick "drop (bags) and wash (face)" we headed over to our private boat that took us over to Venice.  It was about a 30 minute boat ride and along the way we got to see Elton John's house.  It it the yellow one connected to the church.  I know it doesn't look like much but it cost a pretty penny......10 million euros, which is rougly 14 million dollars. Gheesh....That makes Palo Alto look like a dollar store!

Anyhoo....we stayed in Venice for about 3 hours that night. Just enough time to grab some din-din, explore a little, and "hunt" for the treasures I wanted "gather" the next day.  Venice is known for it's glass so this shopping was right up my alley.....shiny and sparkly. I held off buying anything though until the next day because I knew I would have more time then and I wanted to make the right decisions.....my suitcase could only weigh 50 lbs total on the way back so there wasn't much room for excess!

The next morning we took a different form of transportation back to Venice.  This time, instead of a big boat, we took water taxis. The were so much fun, but gave a few of us motion sickness babies a little bit of a hard time.

It took about four water taxis to get our group over there. After a quick tour of Venice with a guide, we were on our own for most of the day. They had set up a tour of a glass blowing factory and it was by far my fave part of the day. At the end of the demostrations they were selling their products in the gift shop and everything was BEAUTIFUL, but extremely pricey. Seriously, who spends 100 euro on ONE wine glass? Even the most fabulous of the fabulous people, my Momma, couldn't afford to do that. At least one gets broken at every dinner party! $25 for a box of 4 is much more our style! But  I still wanted to go away with a rememberence of the glass factory so I got these little gems:

Our tour guide's daughter told me they looked like disco balls in my ears. PERFECT. They are my new everyday earing.

I got a couple of other little things that I won't mention on here because they are gifts for some of my blog followers, but one little lovie I WILL share is that I found another little red heart to add to my growing collection my Momma started. I also got one for her and my Auntie Chris....They are currently en route to Cali along with a couple of other prezies............

Oh yeah...I almost forgot....We got to take gondola rides while in Venice. LOVED those.  They even gave us a bottle of champagne to enjoy...YEAH BUDDY!!!!!

My only complaint about Venice is that I felt like it was kind of dirty.  There were birds EVERYWHERE so you can imagine the mess that they left behind.  Also, it was extremely crowded so, at times, this closterphobic girl was a little uncomfortable. 

We had our third game that night and, to be honest, it isn't even worth blogging about. We won 135-27.  But, then again, happy coaches = happy trip, so I guess it was kind of newsworthy. HA!

She started the game for the other team. I'm not joking.

Here are a couple random Venice pics:

Chester on the gondola ride. Love this guy. Always has a smile on his face.

Another pic for my bro and SIL....There are no cars in Venice, so this is how the po-po get around.

Venice Recap:

Food: The food was good. Bonnie got a seafood platter that looked pretty legit.  I stuck to my Caprese Salad and gellato.

Shopping: BEST of the whole trip! 

Hotel: The hotel was ok. Probably my least fave. Although it was newer, it was located in an industrial city so there wasn't much ambiance. The hairdryer and shower were functional so I didn't complain much.

Next up: Our final stop- Lake Como!

Smooches,

THE DARLING DIVA