The beautiful canals of Venice!

Our next big trip was to celebrate our 3^rd anniversary.  We decided a romantic place to go would be Venice.  We had a wonderful time, but if you ever decide to go to Venice, DO NOT go at the end of July.  It was around 100 or more with the heat index every day that we were there.  We spent the warmest part of the day in museums or back at our bed and breakfast.  At any rate…..here we go!

We flew RyanAir into Venice and had to take a bus from the airport to the island.  This should have been about a 45 minute bus ride, but the lady at the ticket counter for the bus told us to get on the wrong bus that didn’t go all the way onto the island.  So, we had to get off the bus and figure out when and where to pick up the next one to take us where we needed to go.  We ended up waiting for about a half hour or so for our next bus, but made our way to the island.  Brandon found a great bed and breakfast on the island about a 15 min walk from the main bus station.  We checked in, relaxed for a few minutes and hit the ground running. 

There are absolutely no vehicles in Venice except for by the main train and bus station, so to get around everyone uses boats.  They have a public transportation system that is all done by vaporetto (water bus).    To get our bearings and see some of the famous buildings we took a vaporetto ride down the grand canal and used our Rick Steves book to educate us on what we were seeing along the way. 

After our canal ride we walked around the city a bit to take in the sites of such a unique city.  Venice is VERY touristy, but off the beaten path is a lot more quiet and nice.  We love wandering around and getting away from all the other tourists when we travel; however, in such a small city you aren’t away from other tourists for long.  We saw some of Venice’s famous buildings and went back to our room for a little bit to cool off.    We had the top floor of our bed and breakfast and although it was a little warm even with the air conditioner on, the room was awesome!  It was a studio apartment with our own private rooftop balcony.  We have really come to love staying at B&Bs or apartments when we travel.  They are usually a lot bigger and more comfortable (and you get “free” breakfast!). 

We found a great place to have some local wine and cichetti (traditional venetian appetizers that were mainly seafood) along with some great pasta.  We ventured out of our comfort zones and tried some traditional food.  We ate sardines, squid and octopus (well, one of us tried all of those things…the one that doesn’t even like seafood to begin with).  If I tried something and said it was okay, Brandon would try it after me, haha!

After dinner, we walked to Piazza San Marco for a drink at one of the restaurants downtown to listen to the “dueling orchestras” and enjoy the ambiance of Venice at night. 

The next morning we slept in, had a great breakfast at our B&B and headed out to a day filled with (hopefully air conditioned) museums.  We visited Doge’s Palace which was really neat.  The palace is the old residence of the Doge of Venice who was the supreme authority of the Republic of Venice.  We also visited the Correr museum which was filled with paintings dedicated to depicting Venetian history.  We found a great little sandwich place to have some lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the back streets of Venice and climbing the bell tower on Piazza San Marco.  During the hottest portion of the day, we went back to the hotel for a few hours and scouted out a great place for dinner. 

Other than the heat, we had a great time in Venice and would love to go back some day when it isn’t so hot!  This was a wonderful place to spend our 3^rd anniversary and a trip we will never forget!

Brugge, Belgium

It’s been a pretty crazy summer around here, but we have to take advantage of the long weekends as long as the Government furloughs are still in effect.  Our first of 11 unpaid days off was on July 19^th.  We had originally planned on going to the Alps and camping, but the weather turned for the worse.  We decided that we still needed to go do something, so we went down our list of things that we want to do and see and settled on Brugge, Belgium.  We made a great choice!  

We took off for Brugge on Friday morning.  It was a little over four hours to Brugge from Kaiserslautern.  We basically went up and around Luxembourg, past Brussels, and then it was a straight shot to Brugge.  We got checked in to our hotel and headed out to explore!

It was about a 10 to 15 minute walk from our hotel to the city center.  First thing on the agenda was a boat ride on the canals through the old city center.    Some pictures from the boat ride:

Our take on Brugge is that it is a perfect mix of the old medieval charm of Rothenberg, the beautiful canals of Venice, and the awesome architecture of the Netherlands.

After our boat ride, we wandered around the old town and made our way into a couple of the amazing churches that Brugge has to offer.  Our first stop was the Church of Our Lady.  The structure itself is mainly from the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th centuries.  At 122.3 meters high, it’s bell tower is the tallest structure in Brugge.  Along with the beautiful stained glass, there is a Madonna and Child sculpture by Michelangelo that was created around 1504.  Our Rick Steves guidebook said that this sculpture was made during the same period as his statue of David.  Rick said that when he needed a break from David, he worked on this statue.  It was pretty small, but impressive none-the-less.  Here are some pictures of the church and the statue:

The next Church that we went into was the Basilica of the Holy Blood.  The small chapel itself was very impressive with its elaborately painted walls and ceiling, but it didn’t get the name of Basilica of the Holy Blood for nothing.  This church holds a relic of the Holy Blood that was allegedly collected by Joseph of Arimathea and brought from the Holy Land by Thierry of Alsace.   It was pretty cool to see and think that you could be looking at the blood of Jesus!  It actually ran chills through our bodies.  Here are a few pictures of the church and the area where the relic is housed:

After wandering around town a little more, we found a little bar called T’ Brugsch Bierateller to sample some delicious Belgian beer.  We ended up going back to this little bar a couple more times during our stay. The bar tender was really cool and had lots of advice on things to do and see.  After dinner and a pint at an Irish bar, we called it a night and headed back to the hotel.

Saturday was a day full of climbing and sampling beer.  We first went to the bell tower in the Market square and climbed all the way to the top to get these beautiful views of the city:

After that, it was off to the Halve Mann Brewery.  We took the brewery tour and really enjoyed our tour guide.  She had a really dry sense of humor and was pretty witty.  After the tour, we made our way to the tasting room where we enjoyed a sampling of their beer and a very good sausage and Old Brugge Cheese plate. 

We rounded out our day by going to a couple different beverage establishments to do some samplings and ended up back at T’ Brugsch Bierateller for one final drink.  We called it a night early on Saturday because we had a long day ahead of us on Sunday.  We had a morning bike ride in the plans and then we were heading home.

We woke up Sunday morning, packed all of our stuff, and headed down town to pick up our bikes.  After we got all of our gear, we headed through the downtown area and out of Brugge.  We were headed for a little town called Damme.  The ride out to Damme was along a canal the entire way.  We enjoyed the beautiful countryside and even saw a windmill.  This section of Belgium was under Dutch control for a long time, so you can see that influence all around.  

After a quick tour of the little town and bite to eat, it was back to Brugge to begin our trip home.  We had a pit-stop at a souvenir shop to pick up our purchases that they were holding for us, and made out way back to the car.  It was a long trip home!   We stopped in Bitburg (another military base) for gas and dinner, and finally made it back to Kaiserslautern around 9PM. 

We really enjoyed our time in Brugge!  I would highly recommend spending a couple days there if you ever get a chance.  The more time we spend in Belgium, the more we are liking it.  Don’t get confused though…….It’s nowhere close to Ireland on our list of favorite places to go!

Here are a few random pictures that we thought turned out really well!