03/28/2026
Day 27: we woke up in Venice to a beautiful sunny day and had a delicious breakfast at the hotel, but the French win as far as food goes (in my opinion). But we did have some delicious lattes and the food was still yummy. Then we headed out for the day. We walked around San Marco Piazza and did some shopping. We found the pharmacy and I got a new leather purse. I think I could have sprung Jay for a diamond after the phone situation but I was happy with my Italian leather bag 🙂. Then after walking around awhile we went back to our hotel and sat on the veranda and watched all the gondolas coming and going. Then we had a water taxi pick up us up from our veranda and off we went to the train station. We sat and had lunch and people watched at a comfortable little table and we splurged on some Italian chocolate. It was good! Then we navigated our way to our train and now we are taking the 4 hour trek to Rome. I think I have more videos than pictures today so look in the comments because the videos are spectacular.
Update: navigating from Venice to Rome was the most difficult part of our trip. But amazingly there was a mysterious person at each difficult spot. When we had to switch train lines after leaving Venice, I was unsure of where to go and turned to the woman next to me and asked if she spoke English. She spoke very limited English, but her husband took over and asked if he could see our phone. After looking at where we needed to go. He said follow me. He took us hurriedly down underneath into the train station. Found our locating train line and set us right where we needed to be. ”grazi, grazi, grazi, thank you, thank you, thank you” I said hurriedly as we were in a pinch of time. Then after disembarking in Rome, we had to find another train to get closer to our hotel. FL line 5. We couldn’t find it and it was at night. But amazingly we found someone that could help us. He advised us to take the metro instead of the train which left sooner. We found the metro location but needed to buy a ticket at the automated kiosk. There was a man standing there who helped us navigate through the entire process. He was looking for a tip, and I was glad to give it and grateful for his service. So we took the metro but found out that it was a 20 minute walk from our hotel not a four minute walk. As we were walking from the train station to our hotel, at night, I was a bit concerned as we are carrying our luggage and have tourist written across our foreheads. but at the end of the road that we were walking on there was a van parked. It looked like a hotel taxi service but I knocked on the window anyway just as he was starting to takeoff. He agreed to take us (though he did ask for cash and I saw him shove the €10 in his pocket) we were so grateful for his service and happy to oblige. He dropped us directly at our hotel. The hotel was very securely locked, but the hotel sent us very clear detailed instructions on how to get into our room. It took a few tries, but we made it and found it to be a wonderful, clean safe place to stay. We are so grateful for the hand of God who guided us safely to our destination. 
