Water and more water - Venice

After spending almost half of the day at different airports, we finally reached Venice, the city of water. It's raining when we reached there =.= The rain stopped after we checked in at our hotel and it was still a few hours before dinner time, so we left our comfy hotel rooms and out to the cold and wet grounds, exploring the beautiful city.

Street view from outside our hotel

masquerade masks

Murano glass....specially in Venice

selling vegetables....they look really fresh!!!

water bus

Water taxi

one of the bigger bridges

Venice has a lot of bridges connecting each street!!!

Typical Venice scenery =D

me and Wei Ven

Found a place for dinner at a cafe....other than the spaghetti, we didn't really enjoy the dinner.... (maybe coz we had good French food the day earlier and this was comparatively not as nice....haha)

soft bread 

biscuit-like sticks

spaghetti with cuttlefish in black sauce - BEST dish of all, I still miss this to this day

beef lasagne

spaghetti con vongole (i.e. with clams) - nice and fresh, yummy!

fried fish of the day

chicken chop with salad - certainly not the best ever and we didn't really like it

I didn't like mine either....this is pork chop with chips, quite dry....

Venice at night

Walked into a gallery/museum randomly to take pics....free entry

When nightfall came there was a sudden heavy downpour....we quickly got back to the hotel as fast as we could as it was quite cold and the streets were dimly lit. And the ground was very wet....we spent the night just relaxing ourselves in our rooms and surfing the internet with the free wi-fi at the hotel =D

The next morning greeted us with good-quite-sunny-warm weather. What a joy....good timing to have our gondola ride!

by the balcony of our hotel...

We had free breakfast at the restaurant next to our hotel

=D

Gondola ride!!

apparently the movie 'The Tourist' was filmed here

group picture in the gondola =D

masquerade...

we're LOST....everywhere looked very similar to us!!

Using the map the hotel gave us, we managed to find our way through the many passages and bridges and alleys.....to reach Piazza San Marco. We spent a lot of time taking pictures and by the time we reached the square we were very hungry. Time for lunch!

Decided to have pizzas so we ordered 4 different pizzas to share  

Piazza San Marco (St Mark's Square)

There were a lot of pigeons at the square

one of the buildings in Piazza San Marco

nice architecture

Soon it started RAINING again....and everyone quickly looked for cover in the buildings, including the stall owners. It was really 人山人海.....we waited a while before the sky cleared for a bit then continued to walk around and find our way back to the hotel, as we had another flight to catch in the evening.

TRAFFIC JAM in Venice.....so-called traffic jam in water!

bye-bye Venice....

Bonjour de Paris!

Europe trip continued.... =P

14 March: 

Spent most of the day at airport.....took the flight from Zurich to London Luton (our flight was delayed for an hour++) so by the time we reached London Luton it's lunch time.

Had Burger King as our lunch

Took the afternoon flight to Paris; by the time we reached Paris, dragged our heavy luggages up and down the Metro train stations (staircases =.=), checked in at our hostel (we got the top floor, another pain to climb the staircases with our luggages)...and then to find out that our room was quite dark/dimly lit as there's no light except the toilet light and small light near the entrance door....it's already about 9++pm when we walked out our hostel to the streets to look for a place for dinner. Yes we hadn't had our dinner then and we were so very hungry....

GPS-ing....Hao Keat's Nokia N8 GPS system helped us a lot during our trip!

With the help from Hao Keat's phone on restaurant guide we finally found a French restaurant nearby called Chez Paul. Not bad....really authentic French...menu's in French, waitresses spoke French, and you wonder how did we order the following dishes:

First entrée - salad seafood cocktail

Second entrée - Lyon sausages with pistachios and warm apple

Third entrée - ratatouille (remember the cartoon?)

We decided to order a bottle of red wine to truly enjoy it the French way =D

First main course: roast lamb in its original juices and mashed potato

Second main course: red tuna fish fried with season vegetables (in this case, carrots and beans)

Third main course: chicken with beans and potatoes

By the time we finished dinner it's already about midnight (speaking of super late dinner...). Walked back to our hostel (or should I say, the dark room) to sleep.

15 March:
Woke up early in the morning to have breakfast at 7am. It's included as part of our stay...nothing fancy but better than having none at all.

You can have as many bread as you like....they have butter and jam spread, and coffee/hot chocolate/espresso/just click on the coffee machine for whatever you like.

A full day tour in Paris!

In front of Musee du Louvre 

Unfortunately it's not open on Tuesdays!! SO we didn't get to see Mona Lisa...just took the pics of these statues from the window....

Louvre buildings

Louvre Pyramid

Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (smaller arch)

inside the Palais Royal

Palais Royal garden

pretty colours

有没有像冬季恋歌的感觉呢？

fountain and a couple of ducks

cute dog watching the ducks!

chalice

Obelisk

Seine River....with the Eiffel Tower in the background

moi =D

in front of Assemblee Nationale

elephant statue outside Le Musée d'Orsay

Arc de Triomphe!

Had late lunch at a French restaurant, La Villa d'Este....simply love French cuisine =D

some snack before we ordered our food

First entrée: duck liver mousse and salad

Second entrée: warm goat cheese salad

Third entrée: escargots

I really love French cuisine!!! Thumbs up!!!

First main course: tagliatelle with seafood

Second main course: some meat with potatoes and beans....YUMMY!

First dessert: fromage blanc (cottage cheese yoghurt)

Second dessert: charlotte with berries

Third dessert: cake (gateau) with 3 types of chocolate

Then off we went to the main tourist attraction of Paris.....

Eiffel Tower!! Finally =D

We pre-booked our tickets online so we didn't have to queue to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower.  There was really a long queue....wonder how long did they have to wait....

Night view of the city of lights

Eiffel Tower at night

Last night in Paris.....

Finally I got to visit this city that I always wanted to go to since young (don't ask me why, I don't really know the reason either)~