Venice Day 1

At last I am posting Venice. Agian I have been overwhelmed at all the pictures. We started out with a late start. Jeff didn't get off work Friday till very late and then we jumped in the car and set out to drive. Our google map approximation was a little short of actual time and getting a little lost didn't help us out, but I know that Jeff and I will always remember driving to Italy and getting to Venice in the early hours of the next day. We woke up the children in the middle of the night in the parking garage and loaded us all onto the water bus to take us into the city, then walked around Venice till we located our hotel in almost complete darkness with the iphone light and google map as our guide. Kaylie held the phone as we pushed her in the stroller and told us if we steered away from the blue dot. It is a strangely wonderful thing to experience Venice as it is closer to dawn then dusk, all quiet, dark and empty.

Magically we convinced the children that they wanted to go back to sleep, but with only a few hour there was definate need of some sugar to start the day. We all are starting to miss American food, but one thing for sure we will miss here is our daily fresh bakery goods. In Switzerland we can get them in the Italian and French variety. It has become a bad, bad habit.

The first thing we did was get a 24 hour water bus (vaperatto) pass. Obviously there are no roads in Venice so everyone gets around by foot or boat. The water bus is the best way to see all of Venice, especcially with two little ones in tow. Tiny thought they were good for playing peek-a-boo on. We were able to see everything along the grand canal. Of course the views are incredible, and we could get off and on as we pleased.

On the way back we stopped at Rialto market, and bridge. The girls admiring all the little glass animals and colorful beads.

Tiny wanted to walk up the whole bridge by herself.

There was evidence of carnavale everywhere. Perhaps it is like that year round, but it had just ended earlier the week we visited so confetti was litterally in every corner of the city. Kaylie is kissing a frog mask, hanging on the wall. She really like Venice, the costumes and boats...

...the food. We grabbed some lunch before hoping back on the bus. Sweet tooth Tiny prefered the cannoli.

We got off the vaperatto agian at the Santa Maria church. It seems there are hundreds of gorgeous buildings over here, but Venice gets extra points. There were more sights then we had time for and I can't imagine how you build something like this from the water.

I love when the girls are in a good mood out here. They are getting pretty good at exploring and traveling around.

They call this area punta della dogna. It was significant in the past as a cutoms for all the trade that made Venice famous.

This statue was on the very tip of it all. Audrey saw that he was holding a frog and thought the frog was so funny. There was a guard standing next to the statue for the sole purpose of making sure no one touched it.

We wandered around getting lost in the backstreets of Venice. Everyone told me that this was the best way to see Venice, and everyone was right. The weather was wonderfully mild and our children were particularly cooperative. We had only been there almost one day and we loved Venice already.

Stay tuned for later that night....aka the least romantic gondola ride in Venice.