Wednesday - Venice

Today was a great day. We got up bright and early (literally 5:00am) to take the train to Venice. Camden has become a huge fan of an author named Mary Pope Osborne, and she writes children’s books that take place in various cities – since reading one of the books in particular, he has always wanted to go to Venice. The kids had a hard time getting to sleep Tuesday night in anticipation. We had a long train ride there, but met a great family from Holland that kept us company – Bailey played cards with one of the boys and a girl and then Camden played his DS against one of the boys – it was a perfect match-up to make time fly. We arrived in Venice and were initially amazed at how the entire city is built on the water. We took a Water Taxi to St. Mark’s Square, where Mark (Gospel of Mark from the Bible) is, the famous clock tower is located, and of course the pigeons congregate. We have become a big fan of Rick Steeves (the travel book guy) and decided that with his recommendation, the best thing to do is to “get lost” and walk around beside the various canals and bridges to find the “off the beaten path” places. By far this was our favorite thing, we even let the kids take turns deciding which way to go (left ,right, or forward). They loved directing us, and we did find so many little side streets and canals – absolutely picture perfect! The one request that Camden had was to be able to purchase a “Carnival Mask” – Venice is known for its huge Carnival Celebration (like Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Carnival is the celebration before lent). Each of the kids chose a mask to buy and Camden was especially thrilled to be like “Jack” from the book that he likes so much. We also took a short Gondola ride, and went into a few Churches and art exhibits, but mostly enjoyed strolling around the streets. We had heard mixed reviews about Venice – some people have liked it, some loved it and some didn’t care for it so much, but we really had a great time. We definitely want to go back. We arrived – exhausted- back home at 1:00 am (we probably should have spent the night, but already had our hotel in Mezzana). Venice is definitely one of our favorites so far - I do have to say that we have had great weather too, which Venice could potentially be miserable with bad weather – it amazes us how much there is to do in Europe in just a relatively short distance – it was a great city!!!

P.S. The ice cream picture was funny because after the kids ordered ice cream, we noticed that they each ironically chose the same color flavor as the shirt that they were wearing :-)