For my inaugural “Trip Snippet,” here’s the first day I ever spent in Italy.
Only minimal edits have been made to the original trip journal entry, and mostly to protect the inno–err–the identify of the rather odd people encountered.
Monday, July 24th, 2023
Debarkation from “Enchantment of the Seas”
I woke up around 5 AM. I had initially planned on doing some trip journal writing, but I figured it was more expeditious to do some research into plans for Venice. I read Rick Steves’ Venice book for about 40 minutes. Alicia woke up while I was doing so and got ready. At 5:40 AM, she announced “we’re here!” And I looked out over the balcony of our cabin to catch my first glimpse of the Italian coast.
I then followed her lead and got ready. We put the last touches on our packing efforts and left our room a little after 6 AM. Breakfast at the Lido buffet was unremarkable save for 2 things:
- My omelette took forever (and I had to take it “to go,” back to the room), and
- The mother who had annoyed us on our excursion a few days ago in Mykonos showed up in the dining room dressed as Snow White.
As evidence of this really occurring (and partially due to my disbelief) I snuck a picture of her “Disney bounding” effort on the high seas.
I wondered if her husband woke up that morning and said to her, “Darling, you look particularly fetching today. How about you wear something special for our arrival in Venice. Why don’t you go slip on that Snow White dress that we bought on sale last November at Spirit Halloween?”
Seriously—who does this?
I returned to the room with my omelette, a bit of orange juice, and Andrew. We arrived a bit ahead of the rest of the family. This allowed me to get my stuff together for our departure (and allowed me to pound out a few words on this entry.) After they joined me at the room, the family departed their cabin for one last time at 7:10 AM, but not before taking a selfie out in the hallway in front of the room.
We went down to the theater to meet with our final excursion group / airport transfer in the balcony seating of the venue. I walked down with my backpack, camera bag, and the Longchamp bag (which was putting me in a sleeper hold) and checked in with the Royal Caribbean staff member overseeing the operation at 7:15 AM. The rest of the family had a heck of a time trying to locate an elevator down to the proper floor. They eventually gave up and took everything manually down the staircase. 
We only had to wait about 5 minutes before they let us know that our “tour” (a tour of Padua and an airport transfer to the Venice Marco Polo airport) was heading out. We walked over to the center of the ship and split up. I took the stairs down to the first floor while the rest of the family took the elevator. It was a challenge–in order to secure an elevator in a timely manner, the rest of the family had to ride up to go back down.
We were all standing on port at 7:36 AM. Our bags were easy to find as they were the last in the bag group #3 to be claimed. After getting our stuff, we were herded through a line that was labeled “nothing to declare.” We were then brought to a nearby, nice Volvo tour bus. We were beginning our tour on the bus (leaving the port) at 7:46 AM. Our tour guide was Alejandra Maria Alvarado Herra (she gave us each a business card with her name and contact number on it). Our driver was a guy named “Vincenzo.” (Of course.)
On the bus, we drove straight up the coast–not passing through Ravenna proper. The area north of the Ravenna port was like Seaside, Florida if you replaced all of the houses with old-school Italian apartments.
We passed many fishing houses. These were temporary places where people could stay for the day that allow people to fish directly from their dwelling above while hanging out with friends / family. Each dwelling had a button that when pushed it would lower a fishing net to the water that the dwelling was situated above. They then pushed the button again to raise the net and claim the fish that it caught. The renter of the dwelling could then cook their catch in the dwelling’s small kitchen. The whole living area of the dwelling was <269 sq ft. (25 sq meters.) Very interesting.
At 8:17 AM, we saw the second McDonald’s of our trip. It had some branding on the sign that said “McDrive.” I’m not sure if that referred to a drive thru?
In any case, our first stop was at 8:29 AM at a gas station “IP – Itapol S.N.C.” – SS309 – Romea, Km 38, 44022 Comacchio FE, Italy – because some lady couldn’t wait to use the restroom. As we stopped, the lady tried to go directly to the bathroom. Our tour guide assisted her. It took the service station a while to open the restroom door of the service station. Alejandra tried her darndest, though. She went inside the service station and attempted to locate a key for the restroom. 
Meanwhile, the woman who had to pee went behind a semi truck. Holy crap. We watched the whole happening unfold from the right side of the bus.
When Alejandra came out and got the restroom open, she turned around to see that the woman who had asked to use the restroom was no where to be found. This took her by surprise. She gestured, confused 😕 🤌 The bus driver was confused as well as they hadn’t seen the lady trek out behind the semi truck adjacent to the service station. While Alejandra searched for the woman, she resourcefully used her right shoe to keep the the bathroom door propped open. (After all… she had just gone through quite the effort to open the door in the first place!) She tromped around the service station with only one shoe on, seeking the wayward woman. Eventually the woman returned to the restroom door, a confused Alejandra, and a confused Vincenzo 😕🤌😕🤌. The woman only entered the restroom for a few seconds, presumably to wash her hands. Gross.
We were back on the road at 8:35 AM. We stopped not even 10 minutes later at 8:42 AM. We stopped at Parcheggio bus Turistici Auto Camper (Località Lovara, 5, 44021 Codigoro FE, Italy) to use the restroom. I passed as it was €0.5 Euro to use the restroom and I didn’t need to go that badly. I walked around the area which was pretty abandoned. I was glad I did, though, as I found a nearby abbey. I didn’t quite have enough time to walk over to it.
We were departing the travel stop for Padua at 8:57 AM. Many slept on the bus at this point–I wanted to, as I was super tired, but couldn’t quite go to sleep. Instead I worked on this trip journal.
In Padua
We got off the bus at about 10:40 AM in the main downtown area of Padua at Prato della Valle. There, we met another tour guide who was to give us our walking tour of Padua. Our first stop was to go to a public restroom nearby. Andrew was being super finicky about going to the bathroom and everything and I was quickly losing my patience with him. He waffled back and forth–at first, he wanted to go to the bathroom with me, and then said “he changed his mind” about going to the bathroom. I took him downstairs and then he said he wanted to go with Alicia. UGH. I’m pretty sure that I was supposed to pay to use the restroom, but… nah.
As we finished in the restroom, it started to rain at 10:49 AM. No one had an umbrella. Yikes. Luckily it didn’t rain too much and we didn’t have to worry too much about the rain. We began our tour by walking next to Prato della Valle while it was spitting rain. As we walked, a new, second tour guide (I neglected to write down her name) used “whisper units” to give our tour as we walked. (The whisper units were little radio receivers with cheap ear buds with edges square in shape that you had to uncomfortably jam in your ear to get to stay put for any amount of time.) It was a little challenging to hear her due to her accent and the background noise, but the units worked well (and better than they had in Croatia.) Also the ear pieces were nominally more comfortable than the previous units that we’d used.
Our first stop was at the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua (Piazza del Santo, 11, 35123 Padova PD). As we walked up to and inside of the church, I took a few selfies. There was a mass in progress when we entered the church. Our second tour guide mentioned the modest dress requirement as we walked in, but this was seemingly ignored by almost everyone on the tour. I, myself, was wearing shorts. They didn’t quite cover my knees but kind of halfway did. Some people were really not dressed appropriately, and Alejandra (our first tour guide) took off the shirt she had on over her shirt and offered it to one of the young women on the tour to “cover up.” Between her shirt and her right shoe earlier, I wondered how much of her wardrobe she was going to have to give up over the course of the day. In any case, there was some clear signage indicating that no pictures should be taken, and I refrained at first, but after watching everyone ignore these rules with reckless abandon, I eventually started taking as many pictures as I wanted to.
The church was amazing. We walked past St. Anthony’s tomb where I made it a point to say a prayer for Dad and rub / kiss the side of St. Anthony’s tomb.
We then walked back into the areas around the altar–one with some impressive art from the students of Giotto (which our tour guide explained), and a few others, past confessionals, all the way into the treasury chapel (the chapel of the relics) back, where they had an amazing set of relics from St. Anthony, including his jaw, his tongue, his tunic, his vocal cords, and other relics, including from St. Pope John Paul II.
After taking some pictures in the treasury chapel, the mass (which was in progress upon our arrival) ended and we looped around into the main area of the church, where I took some pictures before following the group out into the cloisters area as we walked towards the exit of the church.
We then followed our second tour guide through Padua and into town. I took a picture of Andrew out in front of the basilica as we started walking towards the middle of town. I’m not sure what he was going for with his hands here, but it perfectly captures his zany personality.
We arrived at the school (the Bo Palace) and were very disappointed to learn that we wouldn’t be going into the operating theater of the school–one of the reasons that Alicia booked this tour in the first place. Royal Caribbean’s excursion description was incorrect yet again–it had been wrong a few times on this trip. This really ticked Alicia and I off… we had really wanted to see it.
We then walked over to Piazza della Frutta, where we enjoyed watching some of the fruit vendors selling their food. It wasn’t that busy, though, as I think this was “low season” (as I think the students must have been off for the summer.)
We then walked to the adjacent Piazza Delle Erbe, where our tour guide ended the tour and gave us a little under an hour of free time. She told us to meet back at the fountain in Piazza Delle Erbe after our free time.
After we broke off from the group, I immediately noticed a Pylones location across the street from where our tour ended (Pylones Padova, Piazza delle Erbe, 7, 35122 Padova PD). We immediately went in and I found a “Le Petit Prince” cleaning cloth that I nabbed. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any Padua-specific merchandise that they had for sale.
We then wandered seemingly aimlessly through Palazzo della Ragione. We weren’t very focused with our time, but we really needed to get something to eat. After going around the building, we found ourselves back at the opposite corner of the building (the corner of Piazza della Fruta and Via Boccalerie) and we walked over to Piazza dei Signori and took some pictures with the clock tower.
We considered getting pizza at one of the sit-down restaurants here but ultimately decided there wasn’t enough time. Instead, there was a fast-food type Italian (pasta) place back in the Palazzo della Ragione that we located named “De Bojo” (Galleria Sotto il Salone 21/22 Palazzo Della Ragione, 35125, Padua Italia). We arrived at the restaurant at 12:51 PM. We eyed the menu, which allowed one to pick their pasta and their sauce. They also had a few other entree items for sale (like lasagna, which Becky opted for). Alicia ended up getting a rigatoni with marinara sauce for Andrew. For herself, she got a fettuccini with a meat sauce. I got the hand-tossed gnocchi with a marinara sauce.
We took the food “to go” but weren’t sure where we were allowed to eat. So, we took the food over to the fountain by our meeting point in Piazza delle Erbe and sat on the fountain and ate. I think Becky was underwhelmed with her lasagna (I thought it was very good–nice and creamy). I don’t think Alicia was super stoked on her dish either. I, however, loved my basic gnocchi. It was so fresh and delicious. I think the whole dish for me was like €3.50. Worth every penny!
I don’t think Becky & Alicia liked my choice of where we sat to eat our meal because there was no table and the fountain would occasionally give us a little spray, but whatever… I didn’t have much ability to plan this part of the trip, so I was winging things a bit. Becky struggled to locate a restroom but managed to find a public one (underground, apparently, near Piazza delle Erbe).
We met up with our tour group when we were done with lunch. Unfortunately, our first tour guide (Alejandra) arrived at our meeting point just after the point where Becky left and went to find a restroom. Alejandra told us that Becky could have used the restroom in a cafe that she’d just ate in for free… but Becky had already found the restroom by the time that I’d called her to let her know that Alejandra had this bathroom hook-up…
We then walked back to the bus, which was located at the place where we were dropped off (the south end of Prato della Valle). I shot the last picture along a curved side street as we walked back to the bus. We mostly walked down Via Roma to get there. Once we arrived back at the bus, I’d realized that I hadn’t purchased a magnet for my refrigerator magnet collection in Padua!
I asked the Alejandra if it would be okay if I ran into a nearby grocery store and purchased a magnet, and she said it would be fine. I ran into the store (Supermercato DESPAR Padova Prato della Valle – Prato della Valle, 35122 Padova PD) and purchased a magnet–the only one that I could find. It was pretty basic and said “I ❤️ PADUVA” (with a little St. Anthony Basilica on it in the middle). I was back on the bus at 1:46 PM–the last person on the bus of course. Though Becky mocked my magnet selection, I was adamant regarding my decision for the last-minute magnet. I wanted a “bird in the hand,” as we didn’t have firm plans on returning to Padua, though we figured we may like to.
As I got on the bus, I felt like I needed a restroom–stat. Becky made the joke that we may have to make another emergency stop, though I pulled through. I didn’t have any issues (thank God) and arrived outside the Venice Marco Polo Airport at 2:29 PM.
Arriving in Venice in Style
Once at the airport, we threw our bags on 2 bag carts and wheeled them into the airport. We then quickly located the restrooms and I went first, of course. (Yay for free restrooms!) After taking turns in the restroom, we then located the bag storage rental room with no issues. We didn’t want to take our roller bags into Venice and condensed our items down to only to what was needed, leaving all of our extra & dirty clothing in our largest bags in the storage room. We had no issues checking the bags.
I had suggested that we take a bus / train to Venice, but the family decided to splurge a bit on a water taxi. So, after checking our bulky roller bags into the bag check at the airport, we made our way out to the “water transport” area.
We used the bag carts we’d found in the parking lot the entire way out to the water transport area. It was nice not having to pay anything for them–it looked like carts were free everywhere in the airport. As we walked over to the airport water transport piers, I texted with Andrew (our AirBNB host) about coordinating our pickup on the pier. Andrew arranged a water taxi transport with a taxi driver named Alessandro. Alessandro called me to coordinate pickup. We arrived at the water taxi port at 3:12 PM, and I gave him a call. He was about 20 minutes out (we were about an hour earlier than I’d originally anticipated), but told me that he’d arrive in boat 167 (I think the boat was named “Ivish,” if I understood him correctly) at just after 3:30 PM.
As we waited, I called Mom from the water transport pier. We did a little video chatting (though it was kind of difficult as the signal wasn’t great). Alessandro then arrived at the pier at around 3:34 PM and we were on our way.
The boat ride made me feel like I was in a James Bond movie. I decided to sit in the back, open-air section of the boat. Andrew joined me for a while. (He then got a little spooked about getting wet as the water from the waves adjacent to the motor boat were more than he had anticipated.) It was an awesome way to arrive in Venice. I took pictures and videos as we went.
It was a very expensive way to arrive in Venice. I was expecting it to be €120 – €130, but in reality, upon arriving, Alessandro said that it would be €140. Yikes… either way, it was an experience in and of itself, and it also got us closer to the apartment.
In Venice
As we debarked the water craft, our AirBNB host (Andrew) was immediately on hand. He introduced himself to us and walked us to the apartment. We arrived at the apartment and he led us upstairs into the living area and walked us through the rules and all that we needed to know about the location. He was very nice. The apartment looked like it would work out well for our needs, though there was no crib, which was disappointing.
The entrance to the apartment was approximately at GPS coordinates 45.4380968, 12.3467231. The apartment overlooked the adjacent Corte de la Pieta. We got settled for a few minutes before venturing out into the crazy, beautifully decaying city. I’ve never witnessed decomposition in a more beautiful fashion…
I started walking towards St. Mark’s Square. The family followed me. As they did, they said they were hungry. We spotted a restaurant that was agreeable to everyone: Osteria ai do Archi (a local pizzeria). We arrived at 5:15 PM and were seated immediately. The restaurant was empty at first, other than us. Not many joined us. (The restaurant was super hot, as there wasn’t any air conditioning.) As we were seated, Allison chanted “PIZZA PIZZA” in anticipation. We (the adults) all got Margherita pizzas that we planned on sharing with the kids. Alicia got an Aperol spritz, I got a Campari spritz, and Becky tried to get a Limoncello spritz, but they were out of Limoncello. Instead, she got an (almost as expensive) Coke Zero.
Though Naples is known for pizza in Italy, Venice didn’t disappoint here. Everything was excellent–I resolved that I could easily eat this every night of the trip (and I very well may!). As we ate, we watched a couple of young girls (about 8 or 9 years old, I’d estimate) rollerblade around on the bumpy stone area behind the church that the restaurant was adjacent to (Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo). One of them fell a few times, but these girls appeared to be coordinating dance moves on their skates. When the bill arrived, it was expensive–about €60. €15 of this was a “cover charge,” which we had not been privy to, which is kind of crappy.
We then left the restaurant and navigated using the signs that said “Per S. Marco” through the labyrinth that is Venice. After what seemed like dozens of signs and feeling like we may be walking around in circles, I looked up and BAM–we had arrived in St. Mark’s Square. What an incredible experience. Words cannot do it justice. I took a few pictures before we doubled back towards the apartment.
As we started walking back, I noticed that one of the 2 Pylones locations of Venice was close, so we swung by the store (Located at Spadaria, 686, 30124 Venezia VE, approx. GPS Coordinates 45.4351930, 12.3390630). At Pylones, I did find a Pylones Venice magnet and a matching Venice eyeglass case and snatched both of them up–they were awesome.
We then started back towards our apartment again. I wanted to hang around the St. Mark’s Square area a bit longer (I wanted to see it at night) but the rest of the family was getting exhausted. I mean–I was getting exhausted also, but still wanted to keep going.
We made only one stop at the grocery store near our apartment: Coop Querini CASTELLO Grocery Store (Fondamente Nove, 6576, 30122 Venezia VE). There we purchased Red Bulls, a couple of cold Monster energy drinks, some chocolate croissants, some cereal, some milk, and some water. We were finishing up our purchases at the market at 7:15 PM.
Mom had told me before we left home, though I couldn’t fully appreciate it until now: you really can’t take a bad picture in Venice.
We then returned to our apartment with the food. We arrived back at 7:22 PM. Once inside the apartment, Allison kept screaming and crying with bloodcurdling screams because we wouldn’t let her operate the power switch for the hot water heater and open the fridge. This got old quickly.
Checking my e-mail at the kitchen table, I had received an e-mail from Royal Caribbean explaining how to download all of the pictures we’d purchased on the cruise. I was only supposed to download 100 pictures, but I was able to download ALL of the pictures on our account–not just the 100 we bought. However, I had to download them one at a time, due to Royal Caribbean’s crappy website design. Oh well! You win some, you lose some…
I worked on this journal entry and downloading pictures for quite a while. I was finally too exhausted to continue at about 9:30 PM. I was getting ready for bed at 9:49 PM and passed out soon afterwards.
Winners of the day:
- Italy. It’s awesome. I love it. 🇮🇹
- Venice. It’s also so awesome. What a cool place. I even love getting lost in Venice.
- The bugginess of the Royal Caribbean picture website. On the ship, we’d foregone including some pictures on our account. I had regretted not including all of the pictures. But–no big deal. We didn’t miss out on much and got more than we’d bargained for.
- The Basilica of St. Anthony, especially getting to go to St. Anthony’s tomb and see his relics. That was just amazing.
Losers of the day:
- Being right outside of the church with St. Luke the Evangelist’s tomb in it… and not going in, and not even acknowledging that it was there. Bizarre.
- Royal Caribbean–again–overselling the excursion that we were sent on. It wasn’t that it was a bad excursion, but when the effing picture of the excursion shows the literal operating theater of the Bo Palace–and the description even references the operating theater–it’s a natural supposition that you’d actually get to VISIT the place. Royal Caribbean seems to have really taken a sheister approach to their shore excursions. I shouldn’t have to meticulously compare words of the description of the excursion options, and then after booking it continually monitor the description for updates. This is literally what we were told was expected when confronting the Shore Excursions desk on board with our issues a few days ago.
- The Royal Caribbean picture package. It’s a GIANT HASSLE to get the pictures you want if you want digitals. This should be a LOT easier.
- Royal Caribbean in general. And I kind of hate to say it, but there’s nothing special about their ships. Given the option between a Carnival ship and a Royal ship–all things being equal–I’m opting for the Carnival ship. The food is markedly better, I’m pretty sure the service is better, and the prices are generally better. Heck–in the case of the Enchantment of the Seas vs. the Carnival fleet, there’s not even a promenade, or a place to get pizza at all times of night… the ship was small, dated, and unimpressive.
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