Celebrating in Italy! Lost in Venice Part 1

Getting lost is usually not a pleasant experience at any time for anyone! Getting lost in Venice, however, is wonderful!

After our train ride to Venice, we had to figure out where our hotel was and how to get there. No cars! Just boats and gondolas!

It was the most fun I have ever had at trying to figure out how to get somewhere! I absolutely loved being lost! Every corner we went around, every bridge we went over, every canal we stumbled across…breathtakingly beautiful!

**Exclamation Point Alert**
When I re-read this post I realized I had used a few too many exclamation points, lol! I was going to take out a few, but decided they were there for good reason. I was in Venice, Italy and being excited was okay, right?!

I was in awe! I couldn’t believe I was actually seeing first hand all of the things I saw in pictures I had admired, in movies I had watched, and stories I had read about!

I have two Venice pictures hanging on my walls at home that I literally would imagine “What it would be like to be in the picture?”. I even had conversations with my husband about which building we would be staying in!

Now! I was living my dream! I was really there!

This is one of the pictures I have hanging on my wall. Do you see any similarities?!

Where We Stayed

I saved up enough hotel points on my Hilton rewards card that covered our entire stay in Venice! This was the first stay at a Hilton with our newly upgraded Gold Status. Let me just tell you it was worth the upgrade!! Better yet, let me show you;-).

It was a beautiful suite! It even had a small kitchen! We basically had an entire apartment of our very own in Venice!! We were blessed beyond measure…I joked but was mostly serious when I told my husband “God just gave us the most amazing fifteen year wedding anniversary gift!”.

I really don’t want to come off sounding “braggy”…I am truly so blessed and humbled that we were upgraded to such a room and given so many extras! This room literally costed what our monthly mortgage payment is for a one night stay!

Hilton Gold members are upgraded automatically if there are rooms available at the time. Also, at the Molino Stucky Hilton you get unlimited access to the executive lounge as a gold member if your room happens to be upgraded. This lounge serves complimentary beverages and snacks, wine and appetizers in the evening, and serves a full breakfast in the morning.

We received two complimentary hours at the hotel’s spa. My first Turkish bath experience! Loved it! We treated ourselves to a couples massage with the 20% off spa treatment they gave us at check in (finally, we got all of those knots rubbed out of our calf muscles from walking up tons and tons of stairs in Rome and Florence!). I mean to tell you, a girl could easily get used to this!

This hotel used to be an old flour mill and was beautifully renovated. It is very large, we got a little lost once or twice. Here is a picture of one of the many hallways we had to walk down to get to our room.

If it weren’t for the fact that we were in Venice, we might have stayed in this fabulous hotel the entire time;-). Here are some pictures of the hotels rooftop restaurant and bar.

St. Mark’s Square

We took the shuttle boat back to St. Mark’s square to eat dinner and to enjoy Venice at night. It was beautiful! Most of the tourists had left for the day. There was live music playing in the square even in the wee hours of the night.

The tide got pretty high and water filled the square and ally ways. In some parts we had to walk on risen wooden boards to stay dry. This didn’t seem to bother anyone. I have to admit that the lights glistening on the water and Venice being reflected in it was quite romantic. We even saw couples taking advantage of the scene and danced the night away!

We wondered around Venice window shopping, finding the Rialto bridge and the bridge of sighs, and exploring any thing else we could find. The only annoyance was there was still quite a few salesmen trying to sell us shoe covers to keep our feet dry and other things…we tried not to make eye contact, they are relentless!

Thank you for reading! Join me on our next adventure when we learn about the dying art of Venetian hand-made lace and shop for Murano glass! Until then, TADA!(Travel’s A Dance Away!)
The last few pictures are of our hotel at night.