Wow, quite a long entry on that last one, sorry about that! I suppose because it was a long day since we didn't really sleep much on the train. Let's pick up where I left off though. We took the water taxi from the train station to San Toma, the stop where our hostel was. We found our way to the hostel and buzzed to get in. Unfortunately, our rooms were not ready and we could not check in until 1pm, but they at least let us use the bathroom to freshen up and change which was nice. We left our luggage in the luggage area which was a little weird because it wasn't a closet or anything with a lock, pretty much just a back area that anyone could walk into.
After we freshened up, we decided to go explore. We found the Rialto bridge right away and snapped some pictures. We talked to some gondoliers to see how much it would cost, but decided we would go home and shower first before taking a ride on one. We pretty much just walked around and got used to the area grabbed a Panini on the way and sat on some back steps to munch on it.
We looked at a lot of cool masks and I wish I would have got one, but I kept waiting to find the perfect one. We also found a really cool Beatles/Rolling Stones store which was awesome. We found the perfect gondola charm to get too, but we did not want to get it until we actually went on our ride. We returned at our hostel and had time to each shower and get ready. We shared some wine while getting ready and decided to take the rest with us on the ride.
Since we were the first to check in we got to choose our beds which was nice. Only thing was, there were not sheets (we knew this though) and no lockers. Plus there was a total of 8 beds in one room! It was a big room though, just the locker thing was a little weird for me because every other hostel I had been to had lockers for our backpacks. Luckily, Becky brought a pad lock so we locked our bags together. Funny though, after Naples, we weren't really too afraid of anyone stealing anything. Everything seemed a little more safe after Naples.
We found a gondolier, had our bottle of wine and two dixie cups (haha yup, country song ;) and enjoyed out short, but super cute ride. Our driver Fabio was very nice. Being a gondolier had been in his family for five generations and he told us quite a bit about Venice and what we were seeing as we passed it.
After getting off we snapped a picture with him and the other gondolier man invited Becky and I to meet him and his brother for dinner at 8:30pm at a local restaurant. We laughed and said ok, but later on the night kind of laughed about it, because we didn't know who they were, so of course we were not actually going to meet them!
After our ride we walked around a bit more and eventually made our way to a cute Trattoria for dinner. Trattoria Da Silvio! It was really good :) I had seafood spaghetti, it had a very flavorful red sauce with mussels and clams and shrimp :) Super tasty! We also enjoyed some red wine with our dinner and when our check came we received two free samples of limoncello! It was a very enjoyable dinner experience :) Plus, there was this little boy who came in towards the end with his backpack and he had this party blower and we laughed because his mom yelled at him not to blow it in the restaurant, but as soon as he walked back into the kitchen he blew away and it was still really loud. Becky and I along with the rest of the people in the restaurant laughed. He was such a funny little kid, just egging his parents on.
On our way home Becky and I found Campo Santa Margherita where I had her try a Bellini :) Sparkling white wine and fresh squeezed juice. I had strawberry and she had blood orange. Both were very very good. It was funny though because it was pretty dead there since it was only about 8-8:30ish and most people were at dinner. We ended up going home after that and crashing early at about 9-9:30pm because we were so exhausted from our train ride the night before. We kind of laughed about it though because when we walked in it seemed like our whole hostel was sitting down to dinner talking and laughing and making plans to head out after while us two old ladies were turning in already!
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