European Tour: Europe with Family - Venice

A two hour train ride from Florence, our next stop was Venice. We dropped our stuff off at the hotel, which was right off of San Marco's Square, and then headed to San Marco's Square. As I talked about in a previous post, Venice floods sometimes and one of the first places to flood is San Marco's Square. This time, there was evidence of the flooding. The puddles behind them in the picture aren't from rain, but from the standing water that was in the Square earlier.

Uncle Joe, Aunt Sue and parents in San Marco's Square

The first thing my mom wanted to check off her "bucket list" was feeding the pigeons. So she bought feed from the cart and the pigeons went to town. There she is, getting pecked on for food. Fortunately she didn't get pooped on, miraculously.

Mom, feeding the birds

The one-legged pigeon

With San Marco's behind us

As mom was finishing up feeding the pigeons, I noticed one pigeon who only had 1 leg. I felt sorry for it, snapped a picture of it (obviously) and let out an "Aww, look at that one" as I pointed it out to everyone else. As they were turning to see it, it literally dropped dead. We all laughed uncertainly, thinking that it was playing dead or something. But Dad nudged it with his toe and it was really dead. The animal lover in me felt so guilty...like I somehow had managed to kill the pigeon with just my glance. And seeing as how I almost killed someone's relative earlier in the trip (the candle incident as it's referred to in my family), it just wasn't working well for me. So Rest In Peace, you poor little bird :(

Typical scene on our sight-seeing tour

After San Marco's Square, we walked around for a little bit longer. My dad was in charge (as he was the whole time) of telling us what to do and when to do it. As you can see in the picture to the left...Dad is reading the map, the rest of us are waiting for him to tell us what to do and my mom was taking pictures of everything she could think of.

On the taxi boat to Murano

The next plan was to head over to Murano, to see the glass being blown and then made into something cool. We took the little "taxi" boats over to Murano, and walked around for a little bit after getting a demonstration.This is when my parents saw a fishbowl that was all glass and blown by the artists from that shop. I'll give it to them, it's a pretty cool decoration, its very intricate in it's design and looks like all the fish swimming in the bowl are real but they're indeed glass. I FREAKED out when they told me the price (isn't it supposed to be the other way around) and secretly wondered if they just traded the rest of my college education for a fishbowl...

Us, with the shop's cat

While we were waiting for the administrative part of the process to get going, Mom and I decided to walk around some more. We happened to come across the shop's pet cat. As I've explained before, I'm a HUGE animal lover and while both my parents enjoy animals, my mom has a soft spot for them...especially cats. So Mom and I spent a better half of an hour petting and playing with the kitty while my dad negotiated prices and shipping and all the fun stuff.

View from our room

After ordering the fishbowl, we got back on a water taxi and headed back to the main island of Venice. We walked around a little more, taking in the sights and then went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. Our hotel had two entrances/exits. One was from the street and you can access it by foot, the other was from the water. Gondola's or little water taxi's could pull up behind the hotel and deposit you and your belongings. One of the main disadvantage to taking a boat in Venice is you have to know when the tides are changing. If it is high tide, boats can't get under bridges and other things...so you're blocked in until the tide goes down. Just another thing to think about when you travel by water all the time.

Mom, Me, Aunt Sue and Uncle Joe on the gondola

Me at the Doge's Palace

After dinner, we decided to check the "take a ride in a gondola" off our bucket list. Once the gondolier got us all situated according to our weights and balanced the boat...we were off. Dad had to sit in the very front of the boat by himself (the same place I got put when I rode with my friends in the earlier trip), and he's responsible for the pictures that were taken...so needless to say, they're kind of blurry. There are many things my dad is very good at, taking really good pictures is not one of them. I'm trying to train him better...It was getting dark outside so most of the pictures from the ride didn't turn out well, but we did get some with the famous Rialto Bridge in the background. We circled around the whole island of Venice, navigating the canal waters.

Uncle Joe and  Aunt Sue

The next day we made a stop at the Doge's Palace before we had to get on the train to Switzerland. The Doge of Venice was the ruler of Venice at one point in time, and much like you were expect from a royal, his palace was lavish.

After our visit to the Doge's Palace, we went back to the hotel to finish packing and check out so we could head to Switzerland. We found Aunt Sue and Uncle Joe in the hotel bar, cheersing to Venice and Italy in general...a good way to leave the city. We got in a water taxi that would take us back to the "mainland" so we get to the train station. The last picture really shows just how small the water taxis are, Uncle Joe and my dad look super uncomfortable squished into the little boat. And keep in mind, there were 3 others of us, as well as all our luggage. It would've been nice if it wasn't raining, we could've stood out on the deck of the boat, but no such luck. We all crammed into the little inside of the boat...but it was definitely a fitting ending for our trip to Venice.

Crammed into the little water taxi

 To be continued...Next Up: European Tour: Europe with Family - Riva and Bellinzona