Venice: Places of Worship, Places of Art

Although much of Venice is very walkable, don’t be fooled by the small size of the city. We found there were lots to see and do during our 3-night stay. Like many other places in Italy, the food was fantastic and the art was abundant. I didn’t know what to expect other than a bunch of buildings that happened to be built on top of water, but it kind of felt like we were in a period drama thanks to the gorgeous architecture throughout. It’s no wonder places like Las Vegas and Epcot has created replicas of this famed city.

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Venice: By Foot or By Boat?

Of all the beautiful cities in Italy, Venice was the one I looked forward to seeing the most. And not only because of news that it’s going to vanish in the coming future due to rising water levels. Shamefully, it is because the One Piece fangirl within wanted to see the real-life Water 7. If you didn’t get the reference, don’t worry about it. Just nerding out as usual.

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Milan: From Shopping to Death Pt. 2

The next day, we did a bit of window-shopping around the Galleria. Milan is known as a shopping hub, but you can actually find the same stores around the Duomo in other parts of Italy, like Venice. Being the non-fashionista that I am, my favorite store was the bookstore. For the stylish folks, they do have a good collection of fashion publications, as well as pop up and adult coloring books. Anyhow, we didn’t end up buying anything because there was nothing we needed (and we’re not made of money).

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Milan: From Shopping to Death Pt. 1

Milan is one of those cities I never imagined I would visit, in part because I’m not a huge shopper and also because I don’t have a lot of money (the likely causality of the former). But since Emirate’s popular $800 roundtrip flight deal per couple lands in Milan, who were we to refuse? I thank my Facebook acquaintances for posting about it during the spring of 2015 – we booked our tickets shortly afterwards. Emirates still has regular promotions for this flight route, but it has definitely gotten more expensive since then ($500 and upwards). We had a different friend going to Italy almost every week at that time.

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Park Hyatt Milan: Celebrating a Birthday

Our most recent trip to Italy landed around Margaret’s birthday. Emirates had a special offer in 2015 where 2 people can fly to Milan and back from New York for $800 total. We immediately booked the flights on my phone once we found out about it. After the flights were booked, it was time to figure out accommodations.

I had recently applied for the Hyatt credit card from Chase before booking the trip. The signup bonus for the credit card was 2 free nights at any Hyatt hotel. The Park Hyatt was the Hyatt brand’s luxury line of hotels and the Park Hyatt Milan was part of Hyatt’s top category hotels. So I decided to use the 2 free nights at that hotel during this trip.

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