Day 6 - Venezia!

Our flight to Venice went very smoothly, and because Italy was the only country requiring masking on flights and all public transport, we were a bit more at ease knowing our risk of exposure was lower (we had N-95s on throughout every single flight on the trip). 

Flying over the Swiss Alps, I believe

The tiny hamlets below looked like a fairy tale...little villages built at the foothills, nestled around bodies of water.

This was out first time flying into Venice, so this was our aerial view of the island. The first time we visited it, we came in on the solo elevated roadway/train tracks. I knew flying in that the very first canal to the left of the roadway/train tracks was the one our hotel was off of. The day we landed, the skies were gray and we could hear occasional thunder. It had been stormy weather the week prior, so our arrival there luckily worked out with better weather most of the time.

We landed on time at Marco Polo, and because it was a pretty tiny airport (and 'noise-free' without incessant gate announcements blaring), we quickly and easily bought our tickets via bus into Venice. And after a thirty minute bus ride, it was about a 20 min walk to our hotel right along a series of canals and bridges. 

I don't think anything can quite prepare you for the exact moment your eyes first set sight upon certain historical cities...

For me, these places are Fes and Venice. They seem to literally take your breath away- largely because it feels as though you've traveled back hundreds of years back in time. The historic and colorful buildings lining the waterways the gondolas slowly gliding by, the lack of vehicles... The last time we'd been to visit nearly 20 years prior, we were so much less financially stable, that we took an overnight train from Rome to Venice, spent the day there, and then hopped on another overnight train onward, so that we didn't have to book a pricey room there. 

This trip was, thankfully...a little different, and it allowed for a slightly different experience. It wasn't rushed. We could buy tickets to go into historical sights vs. just admiring them from outside. We could stop, even with luggage in hand, and grab souvenirs, or cannoli or slices of flatbread to nibble on our way to the hotel. I feel like that last time we were there, we couldn't afford to do things like that...we had to hold onto every bit of lira and nosh on bread and cheese from a grocery store.

The narrow bridges and walkways meandering Venice were...pretty packed. You forget how wildly popular, crowded and condensed Venice is (especially in the summer) until you're navigating your way through the masses. At points you're shuffling around, shoulder to shoulder...and of course, we were among the few masked despite being surround by people. 

Ryan. Not a fan of cannoli. Might not be my son.

Our hotel was fairly modest, off the beaten track a bit (a blessing, we found), but near everything we needed...bridges, endless food & drink, shopping, etc. [Stock image I took off Google, as I failed to capture it from across the way while there.]

We dropped our bags at our hotel (above), and then quickly headed down in the direction of St. Mark's Square. The weather wasn't amazing, so we had to take advantage of the pause in the rain and get out there asap.

This was the view from the front of our hotel looking across the canal

Ryan was not as charmed by the oft crumbling Old World buildings, we learned. In his opinion, they all needed a good pressure washing and lots of updates to bring them up to snuff! ;-) He said, "Mom, it's a little ghetto in some areas. I much prefer modern architecture, just more my style." And you know, 14-year old Jolene would probably have agreed with him...even 47-year old Jolene would rather admire it from afar than live within it, if I'm being honest.

Although I was so excited to be ancient Venice...we do have a teenaged son...so our first stop was to H & M, and a candy shop...haha. But once he got a few things (remember, we are country folk, so there are no H & Ms or Uniqlos...or SuperDrys - so we hit them in every city we can), he was happy.

Although Venice has still retained nearly all of it's historic charm with no convenience stores, fast food restaurants or modern architectural eyesores, there were definitely a couple of newer additions, such as a Flying Tiger Copenhagen (which we discovered in Denmark years ago, but have seen in many countries now...as it reminds us of an upscale hyakuen store in Japan). We also got Ryan a super cool t-shirt from a store selling Japanese t-shirts, a new travel journal for myself, and showed Ryan the differences between merengue, marzipan, cannoli, etc.

While we were out and about, we also sampled some limoncello cookies, scouted for the best squid ink pasta we'd wanted to get for a few friends back home, found a Spar grocery store in a restored theatre (we love Spar), and admired the colorful pastas Venice is known for/made a mental note to get some for my nieces back home.

I do not normally covet souvenirs or artwork. But how can anyone not find these Murano glass pieces (not much bigger than a silver dollar) adorable? 

Minor diversion over to a chain candy outlet there called Captain Candy with some of the coolest candies I've ever seen!

Freshly made sheets of chocolate

Gondola rides are all fixed prices these days, which I think, are about 80 Euro for a 30 min. ride. My philosophy on this is that you get a little bored about about 10-15 min, that I'd rather have a few meals out and ride a quick traghetto (exactly like a gondola, but a quicker canal crossing instead) instead- so we did exactly that.

Again, not an art afficionado...but who doesn't find Murano class utterly charming and beautiful, especially when framing the glow of a candle light? I wanted to bring back about 5-6 of these for our al fresco dining table, but there really was no way to safely transport them back. So I took this picture to remind me of what was not meant to be, instead. ;-) 

St. Mark's was still gray and gloomy while we were there, but over the course of a few hours, it became sunny with blue skies!

Nom nom nom. Flatbreads for us, and the pigeons...who we later learned should never ever be fed, unless you want to pay a few hundred Euro fine. (Oops.) Same thing goes if you're tempted to take a dip in ANY of the canals- expect a nice fat fine. Although if you jump into those very unsanitary canals, you have bigger worries like staph (since much of the city still drains their sewage into them).

We walked around for about 6 hours, despite our early AM wake up call in Paris, and made our way down to a tiny, casual pasta shop our Culinary Director had recommended we try out. And we could not have been more pleased- freshly made pasta (you could see the pasta dough coming out of the machine and being hung in the window!) to order! Ryan discovered the joy of carbonara there in that tiny little shop...and we ended returning on our third day there for a final visit!

After dinner, we started to make our way back to the hotel so we could pick up our checked bags, and passed the famed Rialto Bridge on the way.

Our hotel room was much nicer than we'd anticipated, as we had booked a junior suite in the newer building of the hotel. We had a nice courtyard outside, so we were able to leave our door to the patio wide open each night for fresh air. Ryan even had his own little bedroom set off to the side, which was like a bridge...and also had the only peek a boo view of the canal nearby.

This was Ryan's long and narrow bedroom...which you can see below in white, w/ a window to the canal for a view of the canal lapping up against the sidewalk.