PTM // Contiki: Day 11 - Rome to Venice!
This morning we left Rome to head to Venice, a city that I’ve been looking forward to seeing for a while now. I find it amazing that Venice was originally created by building on top of sand banks using wooden poles, cement, and other materials.
On our long journey to Venice we made an unexpected stop in Verona, Italy which is about an hour and a half away from Venice. Verona is an absolutely beauiful city located in Northern Italy with big squares, high end shopping, a somewhat similar colluseum to Rome, and it’s where the story of Romeo and Juliet took place. Once our tour manager told us that we would be stopping in Verona, all of the girls on the bus let out a few screams because they were so excited to be able to see Juliet’s house and the balcony that was a part of the story of Romeo and Juliet.
When we arrived, myself and a few others headed towards the Casa de Juliet (Juliet’s House) to take some photos. There’s a statue of Juliet out front of her home and the myth is that if you rub her right breast that you will have good luck. It’s not hard to figure out which breast to rub when she only has one shiny one! Her right breast is shiny due to so many people rubbing it over the years. It’s quite funny. You know me, I had to get a naughty photo with her.
After spending about an hour and a half in Verona we all jumped back on the bus so that we could check in to our hotel in Venice. Once again I was very disappointed with the hotel location. When we are told that we will stay in Venice, I expect to stay IN Venice. I feel like I’ve been scammed on a few things on this trip and the hotel location is one of them. Our hotel in “Venice” was actually located in Padova which was a 40 minute bus ride to the port and then a 30 minute boat ride to get to the actual city of Venice. The hotel was old, and the showers didn’t have much hot water.
The first night at the hotel in “Venice” we really had no other choice than to either go to bed or go out for a beer at the bar down the street from the hotel. There was no option to head out to Venice even if we wanted to. It was just simply too far. I went out for 2 drinks with a few friends and then headed back to get some sleep for a long day in Venice the following morning.
