We liked the quiet side of Giudecca for three days and today we moved back to the tourist side of St Mark’s Square  Since the hotel check out time is 12 pm, we didn’t had to rush so we didn’t set any alarm and just wake up whenever. We woke up around 9 am and went down for breakfast then came back up to pack and wait. We called Hotel Danieli to see if our room is available, unfortunately not yet!  So we waited and checked out around 11:30, took the ferry shuttle to St Mark’s Square and within few steps, we arrived Hotel Danieli!  I have seen pictures of its grand staircase but the moment I walked into the hotel, I was still amazed by it! I love the orchids hanging down made me felt like a floating garden!

Check in was fast and our room was on the other building which we walked through a hallway with windows looked out and see tourists talking photos of our “bridge” LOL! The first thing I like to do when enter in our hotel room is take photos of course! Our room was spacious in terms of Venice central locations, but we preferred our room at the Hotel Gritti Palace, it was more grand.

The bathroom was a little dated…

Walk in closet area:

We settled down a little bit and went out to the Doge’s Palace which is a few steps away from the hotel! We went straight in with our museum pass, the line for tickets wasn’t too bad though.  It was a hot and humid day so visiting museum was a good plan! We walked inside the center court, it was a lot bigger than I thought!

We walked to the 2nd floor to browse around before going in the palace.  On the 2nd floor, it gave another view of the busy St Mark’s Square from the top.

The long corridor:

The Basilica was under repair so it was covered with scaffold or else it would be a perfect photo!

We had to wait few minutes for each photo for people to walk away…..

A grand entrance to the palace:

Then we saw a sign of no photo allowed inside the palace!!! GRRRRR, I was disappointed again!! The palace was beautiful decorated with lavish painted ceilings and 18th century furniture. I wished I could take some photos!

Then we walked to another section of armors and swords, I saw people snapping photos so I took one too then realized it was still under the no photo zone!

There were windows which gave a pretty view of the busy Venice!

I really like the colored glasses of the windows:

The view of the center court from the 3rd floor:

Then, we followed the sign (the walking route was clearly marked and well planned so don’t worry about not having a map!), we went down to the jail cells. The hallways here were narrow and kind of dark so watch your step!

View of the outside on the Bridge of Sighs (that was the prisoners’ last look of the outside world before they went to jail haha!)

A closer look of the Bridge of Sighs from one of the windows:

We were done with the palace and by this time we were hungry! We tried to avoid having lunch around St Mark’s Square as most people warned about tourist traps!  We walked and walked until we saw some restaurants outside the square, we were so hungry that we just picked one…..Hostaria Galileo.  Food was a little bit more expensive since it was outdoor but the food was pretty decent for 34.65 euros! I really like the seafood spaghetti sauce!

After lunch, we had an idea……to search for the places we had our wedding photos taken three years ago!  That time, we hired a local photographer and he bought us through back roads so we had no idea how we get to each place.  We were looking at our wedding photos and tried to find hint on where we were!  The first location we found was a back road pier that gave a wonderful view of the Rialto Bridge:

Since we didn’t bought our tripods out with us, we had to ask a tourist passing by to help us to take a photo using my back-up point and shoot camera:

Three years ago:

Another angle:

Three years ago:

Our scavenger hunt bought us back a lot of wonderful memories! Next stop, the door arch!  We were very lucky to found it by walking around and checking out each back roads! We came across this quiet yellow-themed street:

We found the door arch!!!!

Three years ago (we couldn’t remember if I was on the left door or the right door lol!):

Last one we tried so hard to find was this staircase….we tried many times but still couldn’t find where it was!!!  If anyone of you know which street or square this is please contact me to let me know!!!

We had no idea how long we walked to find those places but it was fun!  As we tried to walk back to San Marco, we found this colorful pinkish-red theme square, I couldn’t resist to do a jump haha!

One activity that I like about Italy was walk till I get tired and then rest by taking few scopes of gelato!!  We passed by this gelato shop which had the Trip Advisor Certificate of Excellence so we had to try!

They didn’t have the tiramisu flavor so I picked coffee and pistachio, the pistachio was really good! Forgot to mention the shop name is Gelato Fantasy!

We finally got back to St Mark’s Square and saw a huge cruise ship sailing by….

We went back to our hotel to rest a bit and went back out for dinner.  Our plan for dinner was Da Mamo which have high reviews on Trip Advisor! We walked pass St Mark’s Square again, it was almost sunset time, the sunlight was beautiful!

Da Mamo was pretty hard to find even though I printed out a google map.  It was very close to Rialto Bridge but on a back street.  It was filled, we didn’t make a reservation but was very lucky that we got the last table!!  For appetizer, we ordered sweet and sour shrimp with sardine, it was good!

I ordered seafood spaghetti; seafood was fresh and the spaghetti was perfectly done! The sauce was on the light side, it would be perfect if the sauce was heavier with seafood flavor.

Hubby ordered a mix of fried seafood, those were good as well.

We saved some room for desert finally!  I had tiramisu of course, it was very creamy and huge portion!  I was very satisfied hahaha!

Hubby ordered creme brulee, it was fruit creme brulee and it was beyond our expectation!

Lastly…on the house, chocolate with wine inside (I couldn’t eat it since I don’t drink wine but hubby had one and it was good he said)! Total price of the meal was 70 euros for very good food and desert!

After a great dinner, we had a wonderful walk back to St Mark’s Square and walked pass by souvenir shops:

I got one of those goldfish faucet and a fish bowl with two goldfishes inside, total for 75 euros!

After we got back to the hotel and shower, we weren’t tired so we decided to take our tripods for night photos!  Since our hotel was just a few steps away from St Mark’s Square  it was very convenient to go out for night photos hehe! It was around 11 pm and St Mark’s Square was still filled with people!

Love the day and night view of the beautiful Doge’s Palace!

The band was still playing late at night…very romantic atmosphere!

Reflections from a puddle of water….it was not flooding nor raining, the water came out from the drain due to high tide:

 Us at St Mark’s Square 🙂

Dreamy night at Venice!!!