I left my ❤️ in Venice (part 1)

As much as I enjoyed the Lake region in Italy, I was gobsmacked by Venice!
We arrived later in the afternoon after taking a fast train from Milan and the minute we entered Venice from the train station I felt as though we had been transported to a very different and beautiful old world.
(this was our first view of Venice and the Grand Canal out of the train station)

Booking apartments in another country is a bit nerve wracking when you only know a very small amount of the language.  I had booked this apartment through Booking.com and communication with the owner of this place was a bit sparse at first which had me very nervous. Thankfully as the date got closer, we did converse through "What's App".  The owner sent me the address and the information to get into the apartment on the day before we were checking in.  Let me tell you, it was like being in my very own Nancy Drew mystery with various keys and codes to get in, but once we figured it all out, the apartment was lovely. 
We were pretty tired by the time we got in, so we took some time just to kick back, catch our breath and get a little rest before heading out for dinner. 

Venice is a city of so many streets filled with enticing shops and delicious restaurants, along with bakeries and gelato shops.  One of Ken's most favorite desserts are cannoli's, and yes…he had a few along our journey, ha!

We had dinner in a small pizzeria not too far from our appartemento and the pizza that we had was SO good!.  We were both very tired and didn't want to risk getting lost on the streets and bridges of Venice. I now understand how super easy it could be to get lost, which is why we didn't venture too far from our apartment in the dark. One Facebook group tip that I found invaluable was to use an airtag to find your way back to where your luggage is.  That and using google maps to drop a pin on google maps on a place or restaurant that you may want to go back to.
(We never got lost thankfully)

On one of the narrow streets we happened upon a Mask Shop. Ken poked his head inside when he saw a man hand carving masks.  He was fascinated that they were all made by hand. He didn't realize that the one of the original masquerades originated in Venice during The Carnival Season.  It really was a fun shop!

There were beautiful masks with sequins and sparkle, but this one was my favorite. It made me think of what my mother used to say when I would make a face.  "If you keep making that face, it could get stuck that way."  LOL!
Our first night in Venice left me so excited to explore the next few days in the daylight.
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I will move to posting 3 days a week, which is what I intended to do when I wanted to get back to blogging.  This week will be all about Venice (I know, I said I wouldn't but…… there is just so much beauty in Venice that one post can't possibly do it justice, but I promise I will move on to other things. 🙂