On Vacation - Venice

In Piazzale Roma - The beginning of our
trip down the Grand Canal

After relaxing in beautiful quiet Slovenia we headed southwest to Venice, Italy.  It is just over a two hour drive from our friend's house in Slovenia to Venice so it was an easy trip.  We found our hotel which is on the continent side of Venice and not on the islands themselves.  It was cheaper to stay off the islands and just a lot less complicated given that we had our car.  After checking in and dropping our stuff off in our room we headed out to catch the bus over to the Piazzale Roma.  This is the lauching point for taking any boat into venice so it was quite busy.  We eventually figured out where to buy a ticket for the water bus.  This was the cheapest way to take a trip down the Grand Canal.  By cheapest I do not mean cheap.  It cost us 36 Euro (and that is with lieing about the kids ages...they were 3 and 4 during our time in Venice!)  which gave us some insight as to the expenses of visiting Venice.  We took the boat all the way to Piazza San Marco.  It was fun to be on the boat and see the Grand Canal and the girls loved being on the ocean.  They kept commenting that it smelled like the beach and also wanted to know if they could go swimming.  We had to tell them that swimming was not an option and after a while they finally stopped asking.  As we arrived at Piazza San Marco we could not believe how many people where there.  Since we were all hungry because it was lunch time and neither Jason or I are big fans of crowds we snapped a couple pictures and tried to get out of the crowds.  This was a little difficult given the number of people in Venice but we did manage to slip into an uncrowded restaurant for lunch.

Sofia and Ali taking a minute to emjoy

one of the many canals.

 

After lunch we had the energy for more sight seeing and found some less crowded streets.  It was quite pleasant and very pretty when we could walk at a leisurely pace and look at the buildings and canals.  It was fun to wind our way through the streets always unsure if it was going to lead to a dead end with a canal or to a bridge over the water.  We let the girls choose our directions for a while since they like to be the leaders.  It allows us time to enjoy our surroundings and not feel like we are dragging the kids around.  After the quiet of the side streets we braved the crowds again to see the Rialto bridge.  We had to take a walk over to it since on the boat ride on the Grand Canal the kids were very excited to see it because it is in one of the episodes on Little Einsteins that they like to watch. 

I thought this was going to be the shop
but they decided on white and it wasn't
available in this shop.

We made our way through the crowds and stopped in a bunch of shops along the way since the girls wanted to get a carnival mask.  As the masks were so fanciful I didn't blame them for wanting one.  They had a tough time choosing but in the end they both ended up with pretty white masks.  We finished our day in Venice with dinner.  Our friend had recommended a restuarant so we went in search of the restaurant but unfortunately it was closed for the weekend.  Fortunately there was a restaurant next to it that was open with outdoor seating.  The restaurant was in a big open piazza so while we waited for our food and once the kids were done eating they were able to chase the pidgeons all around the square.  It was a busy full day.  I'm glad we stopped and saw Venice for the day.  It is an amazing city.  I would recommend going to Venice if given the chance but I would recommend it only if you could go in a time other than August as August is too hot and way too crowded.