More on Venice, Italy (as promised)

With only my sister left visiting in Germany right now (Shaun and Daddy are in the air as I type and Fonda arrived home just yesterday) I found a little time to write a bit more about our trip to Italy earlier this week as promised.


We left my house pretty early Monday morning (3/30/09) headed on a 5 hour drive to Venice. True to form... we Americans had to stop at a McDonald's for breakfast along the way.

We didn't feel too bad though because the lure of McDonald's was obviously too powerful for the German police too, lol.

After a long drive (with many stops... at which my Daddy always ate something, except for the one when we were pulled out by the Italian border police for a random check) we finally arrived in Venice. Since Venice is a city on water, we had to park our car in a huge public parking garage and walked to the pier to find transportation across the water. We were quickly approached by a gentleman offering the use of his private boat as opposed to the public boat. His selling point was 1 hour ride on the public boat (many stops along the way) or 20 minutes with him. We were tired... so private boat it was!


















Another advantage of this boat was that it went under bridges and through small canals so we got to see alot more.

Once we got to our rooms, we checked in and headed back out for some sight-seeing. We had an incredibly quaint view from the windows in our room of an alley. I think I have seen a picture like that before.

While walking the in-roads of Venice, we came upon several gelato (ice cream) vendors/shops. They have the best ice cream ever! I ate a scoop of pistachio every chance I got. Daddy had his fair share of gelato even though he gave up ice cream for Lent! (I gave up bread which is incredibly difficult to do in Italy for me... I didn't give in though). Daddy just ate his gelato and prayed for forgiveness, lol. There is a photo I took of him with two ice cream cones in his hands that I promised I wouldn't post. Now that was funny!

Fonda and Shaun found a pizzeria that offered an "American Style" pizza that had, of all things, hot dogs and french fries for toppings. They both said that it was delicious. So there you go, an idea for your next homemade pizza.

One of my favorite shots from this trip was taken inside of our hotel. It is one of Shaun and Kalynn playing in the hallway. He would climb down a couple of steps on his knees and sneak around the corner and "judi chop" Kalynn. She laughed the most delightful and sweet laugh every time he would sneak around the corner. I want to remember that joy forever. It was the most sweet and loving sight. Papa also knows how to keep his only grandchild smiling too.

One of the highlights of the trip for Kalynn was the Piazza San Marco, not because it has shares her daddy's name... not because it is a stunningly beautiful landmark, not even because of the view. She had a blast chasing the Venetian pigeons that the Piazza San Marco is also famous for. Everywhere you look, people were taking photographs of them and with them. Some had 5-7 of them resting on their heads, arms, hands and shoulders. (I'm sure that photo will make a great memory for some but I just kept thinking "Ewwwwe... nasty". I was content, however, to watch my little one chase them around.

My favorite part of our trip was the gondola ride simply because I have always wanted to take one. We all took the same one and it was great (except for when we first got on the gondola and it kept listing to one side. Marco assured us that it wouldn't tip over but it was unnerving nonetheless.

Wednesday evening we took the city boat back to the parking garage (we didn't mind all of the stops then) and headed home. We made a few stops on the way home to stretch and take a break and apparently to sit inside giant tractor wheels at an autobahn gas station! Nice... real nice. LOL.