Venice, Italy

Todd had to go down to Vicenza, Italy for work training, so at the end of his week down there, the kids and I flew down to join him for a couple of days in nearby Venice.

Yes.  This means I had to fly down with the kids from Munich to Venice by myself.  

Who are we kidding.  My kids (and Samantha the doll) are professional flyers.  They were great.  And I can't recommend Air Dolomiti enough.  They were fantastic!  I love Embraer jets (for as much as I can love jets) and you get free drinks (soda, water, wine or champagne) on the flight!  

And WHAT A VIEW as you approach VCE!  I spy a little St. Marks Square!

Once we got to Venice, we had to haul all of our stuff down to the docks.  Yes, there are docks at the airport, but they aren't very close.  Please note I am making the little one carry a bag.  But the boat ride is a fun way to get to Venice, even if it takes a little while.  It dropped us off at Arsenale, and Todd (who had already met with the owner of our VRBO apartment) was waiting for us there to help us carry bags back to the apartment.  Our apartment was awesome... one of the best we have ever stayed in.  However, it was NOT meant for anyone over about 6'2.  Todd literally had to duck the entire time we were there!  But it was beautiful, and in a more quiet and less touristy location, but still really close to all of the fun.

View right when you walk out of our apartment.  Blue skies and laundry.

This was the entry way to several buildings (including the one we were staying in).  Graffiti is a way of life in Italy. 

Naturally on the first morning, we went directly to St. Mark's Square.  We met up with Todd's coworker (who works at K-Town), Marji.  She was super nice and fun, and we've made plans to hike Mt. Kilimanjaro in a year or two.  I feel kind of bad that I hijacked her, when she's really Todd's coworker but she's just a lot of fun!

The kiddos doing a very, very classically Venetian thing... chasing pigeons around St. Mark's Square.

I don't remember going into St. Mark's Basilica when I was in Venice in 1989.  Maybe I did, but I don't remember it.  It was July, and very hot, and we went on a gondola and bought funny hats, but I don't remember much else about it!  This church is unbelievably beautiful on the outside, and even moreso on the inside.  The entire ceiling is made of mosaic tiles.  Can you imagine how long it took to put these together!?  It was built in the late 1000s and early 1100s.  Other than a fire in 1106 that destroyed a lot of these mosaics, most of the church is pretty much the same from this time period.

St. Mark's Basilica houses the Pala d'Oro, or the "Golden Cloth."  It's about 10 feet by 6.5 feet wide and tall, and consists of 1,927 gems, including pearls, garnets, emeralds, sapphires, amethysts, agates, rubies, topazes, carnelians and jaspers.  It contains images of the Life of Christ, as well as images from the history of St. Mark.  It's really beautiful, but you can't take pictures of anything in the church.  I just stuck the camera up and took this picture, hoping it would sort of turn out.  Not bad!

Again, this is just facing up, no real direction or attempt at anything... just trying to show that there are a ton of little, tiny gold tile pieces making up the mosaics on the ceiling.  My pictures don't do it justice.  It's so sparkly!

(Photo courtesy of Dennis Jarvis via Planet Ware).  Mr. Jarvis does a better job than me in capturing the color and shine!

The kids were hungry so we were trying to get out of the St. Mark's Square area to find some more reasonably priced food.  The kids stopped to watch the gondolas go by underneath our bridge.

The Bridge of Sighs above me and Todd in Venice.

Pizza crust faces.

Boo.  The Rialto Bridge was under construction and wouldn't be completed for another 6 months!

No Mafia!  Venezia e' Sacra!  

The Rialto area (the bridge is just to the right in this picture).  High water (always) and gondolas (always!) all over the place!

I saw this little round window with an iron gate and a bottle of what seemed to be unopened champagne behind it!  Prost!



Marji taking pictures in the Campo Sant'Anzolo.  We just kind of allowed ourselves to get lost this day!

The beauty of Venice.  The back "streets" are serene and quiet.

Picturesque Venetian canal.

Even the bricks in a dark alley are colorful!

Balancing a beer bottle between his mouth and the uber low ceilings in our apartment!  Loved this apartment, despite this!

This is our view out the window of the apartment.

Before dinner, we decided to head out to the Venice Giardini park so the kids could run around on some of the playground equipment.  Here they were trying to do a little Parkour (perhaps unsuccessfully!)

After the first playground, we decided to keep roaming around and found yet ANOTHER playground area.  Natalie was ecstatic to find this one had a zip line!

Grant played tag with some Italian kids, who spoke only a little bit of English.  Then this older kid, maybe late middle school age, was walking around with what appeared to be a knife and making weird faces and talking to himself (and us) in Italian!  We were kind of freaked out, but no one else seemed to mind him, so we just left!

Trees and late day shadows down in the Parco della Rimembranze.



Big Boy and even Bigger Boy walking along the Via Giardini Pubblici.

Walking back to the neighborhood we were staying at, I saw this quiet canal.  I just love Venice!

Wait.  You were worried we weren't drinking enough wine on our trip because the kids were with us? I assure you, we had plenty!

When is a clock not a clock?  When it's painted onto the side of a building!

The weekend we were in Venice happened to also be the Festa della Sensa, or the Feast of the Ascension.  They celebrate by holding a boat parade that ends with the "Marriage of the Sea" to Venice.

Grant watching the rowers work hard.

Mama and her baby ducklings.

When I was here in 1989, I went on a gondola ride with my parents, wearing a funny hat.  When Todd was here in college, he couldn't afford a gondola ride, so even though the gondola ride costs 80 Euros for 30 minutes, you just have to do it!

The Cap'n and his sister are ready to depart!

The Grand Canal, as seen from my gondola.

Marco Polo's childhood home!  There's some debate about when and where he was born, but he definitely lived here.  Our gondola driver (which we picked up at the Rialto Bridge) was good and gave us a little history and insight into the different buildings along the canals. He explained that most of the buildings were either of the Byzantine or Gothic periods.

Todd asked me to take this picture.  Caution:  Gondolas!  (Believe it or not, other boats also navigate these canals!)  Some are even motorized, so these signs are warranted.

The Bailey family on our parked gondola in Venice.

Next we had a little lunch and went to visit the Teatro la Fenice.

I personally liked the inside of the Teatro la Fenice MUCH better than the Opera in Paris, but Natalie disagreed.  It turns out she actually LIKES the Chagall ceiling in Paris!

"La Fenice" means "The Phoenix" which implies it has risen from the ashes, which it literally did as fire destroyed it three times.  The most recent fire destroyed the entire inside area in 1996.  It was rebuilt and completed in 2004.  It's really unbelievable that this sort of work was done in this day and age!  It cost $90 million to replace it, so perhaps this is why this kind of beautiful work is seldom done today!

I think the ceiling at the Teatro la Fenice is MUCH prettier. To each his own, I guess!

They were preparing for a play!  Below the stage, you can see the orchestra area.

Cool shadows made by the lighting crew.  I believe this was Verdi's La Traviata.

For some reason, these goofballs decided that they needed to do the foxtrot in the back rooms of the Teatro la Fenice!  (Please note Todd's amused face in the mirror).

After lunch and the Teatro la Fenice, we met up with our boat that was to take us to Murano, Torcello and Burano.  Grant passed out hard core on Mommy on the very first boat ride to Murano!

The first stop, Murano is home to the famous Murano glass.  We got to see a quick (maybe 10 min) demonstration on how it's made.  They start out with a mixture of (mostly) silica sand and some other stabilizers (like lime and soda... which kind of sounds like the beginnings of a delicious drink!), along with some minerals for color (you know... cobalt for blue, etc.) and they heat it up to an unbelievable 1500 degrees Celcius to make it liquify.  At this point, he molds the glass into what he wants!

Voila!  A pretty vase!  (Please don't ask Todd about the vases we bought... that's a sore subject!)  This man is one of the fewer than 1000 Murano glass makers left in the world.  An interesting side story... Glass has always been a big export in the Venice area.  They moved all of the glass makers to the island of Murano in the late 1200s because the threat of fire burning down Venice was much higher with all of the glass makers there.  So they moved them all to Murano!

The Bailey family in Murano, Italy.

Our next stop was the island of Torcello.

As we walked along the island, we came across this little restaurant that had a beautiful grassy area and some playground equipment.  Looks like the perfect place for a snack, some drinks, and some playtime!

Natalie got to feed some goats!  What's up, goat!?  Say hello to ya mutha for me!

Oh Captain, my Captain!

*Forewarning:  You are about to see many, many pictures of Burano.  The colorful buildings are so fantastic!*

Approaching Burano, the colorful houses and the leaning church bell tower.  While the island is mostly known for it's lace products, it's also known for the brightly painted buildings.

Bright colors and boats.

The leaning church in Burano, the Chiesa di San Martino, which was built in the 16th century.  The bell tower (built in the 18th century) has got a nice lean to it, approximately 1.8 meters!

Can't. Get. Enough.

Hashtag alllll the colors.

Orange and blue, surrounded by red and pink.

One of my favorite pictures from Burano.

From the boat, you can certainly see the bell tower leaning to the right!

Coming back into Venice, you really get a much better wide angle photo of St. Mark's Square.

The Bridge of Sighs, as seen from the water.  Named by Lord Byron, not for it's breathtaking beauty (ummm...) but for the fact that the view from this bridge was the last one that prisoners saw before their confinement (sigh!)

Time to eat again!  Pasta, wine and bread!  Pasta, wine and bread!  Pasta, wine and bread!  Here are my children on their "cell phones."

And of course, a trip to Italy wouldn't be complete without some limoncello!  One last glass and conversation with the hubs before we headed back (separately) to Germany!

Until next time, Venice!