Surprising Venice!

I am telling you... our expectations for Venice were very-very low. We had heard such mixed opinions about this city that we were simply afraid to be disappointed. Although so many had told us that it's such a touristy city and is way overrated, we could not have just skipped it while traveling through Italy. So when we had a chance to fly out of Venice on the way back, we decided to make it happen. We just told ourselves to not expect much and do it as a "check mark" stop. 

We took the train from Florence to Venice and in just a couple of hours were in the midst of all the Venetian action:). Because it was almost twice the price to take the train that would have arrived at 10:30 am, we opted for the one that arrived at 12:20 pm (but then it was delayed a bit too). Thus, this is the story of how to get a feel of Venice in..SIX hours. 

First, we got on the slow vaparetto that goes from the main train station (Santa Lucia) all the way down the Grand Canal to San Marco Square. If you can see on this map, the yellow road is what connects mainland with Venice by normal road and rail road. 

We were so happy that the weather turned out great for us! Just a day or two ago it was pouring rain here and we missed it barely. 

Venice surprised us by how unique and picturesque it was. 

The famous Realto Bridge..covered with advertisement?

No one occupies the bottom level of all these buildings.

To me, it's just incredible to see this city still standing. 

Yes, it's touristy.

And crowded. 

But it's beautiful! San Marco Square--just like in the book about Olivia the pig.

The kids are standing on the special benches that they use every year during the floods to raise the walkways. Water rises up to 160 cm sometimes.

Wish we had time to go inside this Doge's Palace behind us.

The Bridge of Sighs (similar to the one in Cambridge) connecting the prison with the interrogation room at Doge's Palace.

And gondoliers everywhere.

We took a walk along the Grand Canal without any particular purpose. 

This is real! Streets like this actually exist!

We hired a gondola since how could we not, being in Venice. Eighty euros gets you a 35 minute ride and a tiny bit of narration. 

As long as we got a picture of the real Venetian laundry, we are good. 

Alex got excited:)

A gondola building yard, right in the middle of the city.

Mark thinking about his fabulous life.

Oh, are we supposed to be all romantic on a gondola ride?

Our non-singing gondoleer.

And a family picture, of course. Mark! What are you looking at??

"I am thinking, we should have some more gelato...hmm...my favorite Grom gelato is just over there. Let's go!"

Yummo! The kids counted how many scoops of gelato we ate on this trip. I think this made it 28 scoops.

We headed towards the train station, as we had to pick up our stored luggage, eat dinner and find our way to the airport bus. 

The evening sun was warming our hearts--what a beautiful end to our Italian adventures.

We picked up our luggage, found a really simple pasta/salad place to eat nearby and then walked across the bridge to the bus station. The bus ride was not bad at all--about 40 minutes--but to me it lasted eternity. Apparently, I ate something wrong that day and it did not agree with me. I was lucky enough that my stomach was okay, but 5 minutes into our bus ride, I started to feel like I was going to die if I didn't use the bathroom right then. You know, I never share any of such things on the blog but this was something horrible:)) I had never in my life felt such cramps before (not even in labor)...I thought the bus ride was going to be an hour and a half, but when I saw the sign for the Venice Treviso airport, I started to have hope we'd arrive sooner than that. As we were pulling into the bus stop at the airport, I just stood up from my seat and almost ran to the front of the bus so I could get off first. I am telling you...this was just crazy, but I am glad it all worked out the way it did and that this didn't happen ON the plane or while waiting for boarding or passport control or something. The end of Lyana's story.

Phew...I finished recording our Italian trip (a couple of months late). Hope the kids will enjoy rereading this journey someday:)

Lyana.