Arriving at the City of Love

As we soaked up the sights and sounds of friendly gondoliers, tourists bustling by in sun hats and some with their roller luggages (by that I meant us too), reality hit that we had arrived in Venice! 

We could see our hotel from across the river, and being the adamant, determined and very persevering people we were, we decided to lug our luggages across the bridge to our hotel. Little did we know that it was going to be a serious climb, and by serious I am dead-serious. Climbing up the first few steps was not too bad, but when I reached the top, all I wanted to do was lie flat on those steps despite knowing that it was not going to be very comfortable on that pile of uneven concrete! Our determined selves got the better of us again and we continued to psych ourselves that we were already halfway done. Well, lucky for me, J was there to help so he handled our larger luggages so I could manage with the smaller ones (what a lady I am).

The bridge we climbed.

We were absolutely sure that we wanted a true-blue Venetian hotel experience when we were on our hotel hunt before deciding on booking Hotel Canal Grande. So we were slightly taken aback when we were faced with a rather humble-looking hotel entrance upon arrival. 

Our hotel entrance.

Those pictures we saw online couldn’t have fooled us, and we were sure of that because this hotel was awarded the Trip Advisor’s Travellers’ Choice Award. We were warmly greeted by the staff at the hotel and efficiently ushered to our room by our butler. We were awed when we got the first glimpse of our hotel room.

Almost immediately to our right was a mirror which we later discovered could transform into a television!

Definitely a non-smoking room!

To the left is a baroque-patterned sofa and some wall paintings. 

Relieving my obsession at the bathroom. There's a bathtub on the extreme left and a window beside it (and of course along with the windows are curtains).

This felt almost like walking into a Shakespearean play.

If you lie on the bed and look up, you'll get a view similar to that of the interior of a circus tent. Think classy circus tent style.

Checking out the cupboards in the bedroom. This one opens up to another television set! The Venetians really do take into account the comfort level of their guests so they could lie in bed and watch teevee.

Very pretty mirror in our second bathroom. This bathroom's not as big as the other one, and has a shower instead of a bathtub in it.

We decided to explore the hotel a little and here's the view of the stairway.

The lobby area housed beautiful antique display items such as pottery, and had a restaurant where we had our breakfast at.

And you'll find a bar located just outside the breakfast area.

Us, looking very pleased on our first day in Venice!

More about Venice in the next post...