Rio Novo

What we did -
- Our couple hour train got into Venice around 2pm and we were greeted with our first strike of the trip! Lucky to have avoided them so far, it turns out this time the Venice boat taxi’s were striking all weekend. Sooooo we had a super fun 40 minute walk with our backpacks/suitcases through the densely crowded mid-day Venice streets, light spitting rain and 10+ stair covered bridges. That’s one way to see the city! Soaked in sweat/rain when we got to our Air BnB, we showered and regrouped for a bit. Also kicked off our last laundry batch of the trip 🥺
- We were huuuungry so headed over to a pizza joint nearby. Venice is notorious for not having good food (bummer after Rome and Florence) so we figured pizza was easy. Service was pretty awful but pizza was solid!
- After 2.5 hour dinner we headed out on the town! It was pouring rain so a bit difficult, but still fun to walk along the canals and bridges. Such a unique city! Pretty dirty and beaten up though. Steph had been before and wasn’t a huge fan for this reason, but since we were so close Trent pushed to see it. This is a city at the top of the “will be impacted by global warming” list so had to see it before it goes under water.
- We found a cool wine bar, “Retro Wine Bar” which had 1930’s speakeasy vibes. Trent’s now a big wine guy after Tuscany so he enjoyed Steph trying to get him to understand all the Italian wine regions and taste some local ones.
- Headed home and finished up the last two episodes of the Beckham documentary! Definitely recommend. 2am by the time we went to bed though... not sure how we always do this
- Slept in until 11am… vacation is the best! Headed over to a cafe for cappuccinos and croissants. By 12:30 when we got there all the croissants were gone and all they had available was pizza… too many damn early birds stealing our worms. We thought this was Italy? Time’s supposed to be an imaginary concept.
- The sun was out so we wandered around for a few hours just enjoying the famous sights and canals. Despite the crowds, dirtiness, bad food and gangs of pigeons, it is a charming and unique city. We debated doing the touristy gondola ride but at $100 a pop we opted to save our sheckles.
- A whole swath of the main tourist area was underwater and you could see more water just bubbling up from the drains. Hoards of tourists were buying plastic coverings for their shoes and just wading through it. Some were even sitting at cafe’s with water calf-deep, just enjoying food and drinks. We’d always heard of this so pretty crazy to actually see. Sufficiently grossed out by the dirty water, we opted for dry land and headed to a wine bar for a few drinks.
- Post drinks we headed to the harbour and saw our favorite sunset of the trip. The insane colors over the harbour with the storm clouds booming in the distance was incredible. Venice looked real nice in this moment 🙌
- With an early early flight we headed back to the Airbnb, grabbed a takeout pasta dinner and crashed early.
- Woke up at 3:50am… so pretty close to the time we went to bed the day before. The night before we realized that due to the strike and it being a sunday morning in Italy, no transit was available! Soooo 40 minutes back across Venice it was to catch a mainland bus. Parents time to put on your blinders and skip this paragraph - walking through the dark, empty rat filled alleyways at 4am is not advisable. We we’re ready to get mugged at each meandering dark alleyway turn. Fortunately the rattle of our suitcases scared away most rats and all the drunks were too drunk to pay any mind to us. Not the kinda thing they teach you to do in Travel 101. Thank you striking boat taxis. But hey we made it to our bus and flight safe and sound!
- Venice you will likely end up as our lowest rated location on the trip, sorry not sorry. Absolutely worth seeing in a lifetime, but no need for more than 24/36hrs! Steph thinks not worth seeing at all - go see Bruges or Amsterdam for a similar vibe but a way better time.

Where we ate -
- 1st dinner at 1000 gourmet. Two pizzas and a salad!
- Breakfast/lunch pizza at Farini cafe
- Cichetti’s” at La Barrique wine bar. These are little pieces of bread with various toppings. We enjoyed the really good assorted meats, but had to plug our nose on some of the fish based ones
- 2nd Dinner of takeout at “We love Italy - Fresh pasta to go”. You read that name right. It’s a counter serve pasta place that was honestly delicious.
- Taramisu from Farini for desert

Fun facts:
- Venice has always banned coal ovens for pizza due to fire risk so they were known for not having pizza. Recent electric stove technology has allowed them to actually cook it now
- All the blogs said restaurants in Venice know almost all customers will never come back so they don’t really care about providing good service or food.
- The Black Gondola industry is super regulated. Each location is mandated to charge the same price, go for the same 30 minute duration, wear the striped outfit and all are limited to specific regional trips. Kinda nice as this could easily be an industry to swindle unknowing tourists. However it’s still 80 euro a ride…Read more