Leaving Venice

Our last morning in Venice.

We started with an early morning walk to Piazzo San Marcos.

We had to wait in a line to get into the church.

And once inside, we enjoyed seeing the architecture. The tiling on the floors was so intricate.

And the whole thing is a work of art.

I'm simultaneously grateful for the chance to explore these historical churches, but also find it very odd to be touring a church while mass is going on and people are trying to worship. I wouldn't like it if there were tourists wandering around my church. But I think there are certain services that are closed to tours, so I guess they go knowing what it will be like when they choose that service.

After San Marco, we walked around a little more.

There are so many canals to explore.

Found this beautiful bridge in a different section of town from where we'd been.

And we took a vaporetto down the Grand Canal to see it all from the water.

Covid restrictions have been pretty similar to CA. Masks are still required on public transportation. We see a mix in shops, and some outside, although that's mostly a mask free area. We're just so glad that we can take the trip this year, after it being cancelled two years ago.

Back to our boat ride--we saw a garbage boat--so much cooler than garbage trucks!

I'll never get tired of these little canals. But after a little more walking, it was time for us to go catch our ferry to the mainland so we could get our rental car. We lugged our bags back to the outside port on the island and waited for our return ride.

This is the most interested I've seen this guy in anything for a couple of days. The pigeons were curious about his olives--which are one of the few pre-packaged snacks Peanut will eat. We brought a few things to tide him over if we ever had to wait for meals.

And then, once we got back to our car, we were off to the next stop: Austria!

Venetian Islands

When we woke up the next morning, there was a market a block from our apartment. It was a nice sight after the rough start to our morning. Peanut was still not feeling well, but didn't want to be left behind (and we didn't feel great about leaving him with no way to contact us if he needed to.) We eventually convinced him to come along with promises to carry him as much as needed. 

They have a lot of seafood, along with all of the fruits and veggies.

And then we wandered.

It is so fun to see all of the bridges and canals, everywhere you go.

Peanut and I had listened to the book, The Thief Lord, recently and it was fun to see the lions that come up in the book which is set in Venice.

Our first glimpse of the Basilica San Marco. We had plans to come back the next day to tour it.

It was pretty busy--Venice would be a great place to visit off season because the crowds can be a lot.

Peanut just wanted to lie down whenever he could.

He was not a happy camper. But what a location to take a rest.

We didn't ride a gondola, but got to see a lot of them.

The bridge of sighs.

We caught a vaporetto to take us to the islands of Murano and Burano. Unfortunately, we got on the wrong boat at first,

and got off at the wrong stop on our way to Burano. Don't let the smiles fool you--people were not very happy at this point. I had tried to warn everyone that getting lost in any new city, but especially Venice, was probably a given. They didn't really believe me.

Gelato went a long way to make up for it, though. Glad we found some as soon as we got off the ferry--and had to try some new flavors. I think some members of our family are hoping to try them all.

And then . . . the magic of Burano. This island is known for their lace making, and the colorful houses along the canals.

The island lives up to the hype. I fell in love with these islands when I first visited in 1999.

And another photo to record just how not happy this kid was all day. He's not feeling well, for sure, but also just doesn't handle things being different, so it's hard to know how much of this is illness and how much is just Peanut being Peanut.

Luckily, our other two kids were loving all of it.

We explored Burano for a awhile and then grabbed a ferry to Murano, the glass blowing island. Unfortunately, because of all the delays (All. Day. Long.), we didn't make it there in time to see any of the demonstrations--they were all closing up right as we arrived--but we snuck into a gift shop in time to buy a couple of ornaments and little trinkets.

And we had fun just exploring a little.

And then, we took another ferry to the mainland where we found a beach to swim at. 

The Adriatic Sea is so warm--it was the perfect place to take a dip before dinner. Daddy-o opted to go check out the menu for the restaurant on the beach, which we ended up eating at once we were done in the water. It was just what we needed after a somewhat stressful day.

When we came back to the Piazza San Marco that night, it was lit up and full of people, eating at the outdoor restaurants, listening to live music, and enjoying the beautiful weather. We made our way through the square slowly, tired from the long day, but also wanting to soak it all in.

And we had to stop for one more cup of gelato from the stand right by our apartment. It made for a good end to the day.

Off On a Grand Adventure!

This is just the beginning of a whole lot of travel posts fora bucket list trip that was a LONG time coming. We spent a long day of travel, from San Francisco to Montreal, and then an overnight flight to Milan. Having to stay masked for over 20 hours was not fun, especially while trying to sleep, but we were just so glad we could finally go on the trip.

And finally, we landed in Italy! We were all pretty tired, and some of us were a little cranky (Peanut wasn't feeling great when we left and he really struggles with motion sickness, even on airplanes, so it had been a pretty rough 24 hours.)

But we still had a 3 hour drive ahead of us. Peanut was NOT happy to get back into another moving vehicle and it actually took some convincing to get him to get in, especially when it turned out it was a new car with a strong smell, but we finally talked him into it. The drive was fairly uneventful in the end and we made it to Venice.

We had a spot reserved to park the car for the next couple of nights and a ferry to take us over to the island of Venice.

And then, we were there--in the city of alleys and canals and old buildings and so many places to get lost.

The kids were immediately enchanted.

Everything was exactly what I remembered. I love this city. It's been 23 years since I was here last, but a city this old stays remarkable the same.

Enchanting or not, we were all pretty tired. And hungry. Peanut was really struggling. Honestly, the trip so far was already turning out to be even worse than we thought it might be with him--he's not very patient with change and discomfort, so traveling is sometimes hard. And our Airbnb was farther away, and more difficult to get to than I'd realized, so it was quite the walk.

But we finally made it to our first home away from home. The apartment was interesting--3 bedrooms, and a living room that also closed off like a bedroom, and a kitchen in the back. Tall windows overlooking alleys on both sides, and probably 16 foot ceilings.

The rooms were small, but it was nice to have some space to spread out. We got settled and then went out to find some dinner.

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We found a place on the Grand Canal that had great sea food and pasta. 

It was a little touristy, but still so good, and we didn't have it in us to spend much time searching at this point.

Bean loved the ravioli. All the food was good, but once again, Peanut had a hard time and really just needed to go to bed so dinner was as quick as we could imagine. At one point, our waiter heard Peanut fussing and brought out a dessert, which we thought was so kind, until our bill came and they'd charged us $13 for a tiramisu that Peanut barely even touched. And suddenly we realized just how touristy it was.

We had a view of the Rialto Bridge from our table. It was so fun to see all of these places that we've seen in books and movies.

Poor Peanut. Daddy-o carried him home which he seemed pretty happy with.

The Grand Canal just after sunset. 

Once we got Peanut home and in bed, the other two kids and I ran out to find water and a few snacks to have on hand in the morning. 

We took the long way and did a little exploring down the small alleys and over little canals, ending in dead ends and stairs into the water, and all of the magic of Venice. Bug and Bean were loving it and didn't want to go back, but the sooner we got to bed, the sooner our first full day in the city could begin!