For Easter break we headed to Italy with backpacks and rode the trains between some of the great cities. We flew into Milan and took the train to Venice.
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| First of many train rides! Happy boys! |
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| Kids LOVED this sign on the train! |
We stopped in a store for a few drinks to take along and I was loving the size of the chocolate Easter eggs that they were selling! I thought these were large...
Then I saw these!
Luckily our AirBnB lady let us drop off our bags and we had our first wonderful slice of pizza before we hopped on the bus to the island. The bus driver was crazy but we all held on for dear life and made it in one piece!
Here are some of the beautiful wooden boats we saw when we first got to the canals!
We walked around the canal and took the vaparetto (water bus) boat ride from the main bus stop to St. Mark's. We had downloaded the Rick Steve's Audio tour and he narrated the entire ride. It was great to listen and look out at all the amazing places as we cruised by.
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| Here are what the vaporetto stops look like. |
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We learned that the colored poles outside the doors were like a family crest...
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| Gorgeous paintings on this one! |
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| I liked the designs on this one! |
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| More beautiful paintings! |
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| The Venetian flag was really cool, their symbol is the winged lion! |
We stumbled into an art exhibit by some University students, then lighting outside was cool and lured the girls in. Kelly figured out this first one, it is a Vaparetto driver (ACTV) hugging a gondola driver as there is a pretty constant tension between them, they are always in each others way!
I also like this one of the tired gondola driver earning a well deserved soak in the tub at the end of a long day!
As we walked into St. Mark's square there were lots of well dressed people there to celebrate the University of Venice's graduation ceremony. The female graduates seemed to all be in red and everyone had wreaths in their hair and lots of flower bouquets!
By the time we reached St. Mark's square poor Charlie's 4:30 AM departure time caught up with him and he had an epic meltdown (just ask his sisters). We never got to go in the famous church or bell tower, we had to instead go find him some food!
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| He took the picture because he was too mad to be in it! |
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| So beautiful, maybe I'll get to go inside on my next trip? |
Captain Candy was the Venetian Deb Pond...(our famous candy friend from Wakefield) Captain Candy ensured Charlie had enough sugar to make it home at the end of a long day...
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| Inside the candy store were just giant barrels full of perfectly arranged candy! |
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| A beautiful shot of the famous Rialto Bridge! |
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| An interesting sign...on a local restaurant. |
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On the bridge!
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We hopped onto a traghetto gondola for a quick ride across, these are what the locals use in an area where there is no bridge. It was a perfect way to get a short ride in!
We stopped and bought a bottle of the local homemade wine...the guy sells it to you in a recycled plastic bottle...it was pretty good! Here are the jugs he stores it in!
Just a cool old building we passed on the walk.
One thing we kept passing in our walk was table looking things on most of the sidewalks, they were all stacked up. I had a bought a book that showed what it was like when the high tides come and flood the streets.
I found a picture online of what it looks like when they set those elevated sidewalks up...I learned they are called passarelle. Here is a photo with the passarelle in use....
I consider us very fortunate to NOT have been there for the high tides. It was April (only the start of the high tourist season) but it was PACKED with people and many of them were wheeling luggage around. This is why Charlie found it a bit exhausting, we were always moving through crowds. I can't imagine moving through crowds on the walkways and trying not to fall in and get soaked!
We arrived home exhausted but happy to have seen it all, at our place there was this piece of wood displayed. Greg figured out it was one of the gondola oar rests.
Here is what the plaque said, clearly someone in the family earned it!
We also learned that Venice is a dying city due to the high cost of living, and all the challenges of living there. Each year it loses about 1,000 of its permanent residents, about 60,000 now. They predict that someday it may just be a living museum just for tourists. Very sad to think about and we consider ourselves lucky to have seen it as a real city and before its water level is any higher!
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