Milano -> Venezia

Joey, wary of the Italian freeways

Our drive today was so much easier, taking us the expected two hours to get from Milan to Venice. We're staying in exactly the same chain that we used yesterday, similarly on the outskirts of town.

We had to stop on the way there, in one of the restaurant-and-rest stops that span the freeway every several miles. Ella was completely charmed with the quickie mart store, which sold jugs of olive oil and sliced salamies and, best of all, spaghetti noodles that, when unfolded, were probably as tall as she. I promised that, on the way home, we could load up on giant pasta.

After we unloaded our bags at our hotel, instead of trying to drive closer to Venice, we decided it might be wiser to take the bus to the water taxi terminal.  None of us had researched Venice too terribly carefully, but we had vague ideas of wanting to see San Marco's Cathedrial, eating somewhere close by, and then wandering around the island.  And because that was our plan, those of us who wanted most to see the cathedrial--Brie, Geoff, and me--made sure to cover our knees and ankles.  In Brie's and Geoff's case, that meant wearing long pants in 90+-degree weather.  But Art is Sacrifice.

A cat nap on mommy's lap

The bus ride was as seamless as could be expected, with the small exception of making the driver a little late on his route by pestering him to sell us bus passes.  But he dropped us off right outside the ferry ticket office, and we were able to buy tickets for a ferry that was just about to pull away, taking us up the Grand Canal, almost all the way to San Marco's square.

And that was very good news, because heat and hunger were getting the best of my kids, and they were getting grouchy indeed.  Things improved, however, as the crowded ferry emptied and Ella and Alex and I could retreat to some seats.  Alex curled up in my nap and fell fast asleep in minutes, although Joey had beat him to unconsciousness by a good half-hour.  Meanwhile, Ella and I tried to remember some pop culture references to Venice with which she might be familiar, once I realized that she had no idea where we were going, or why. The best we could come up with was the beginning of Garfield in the Rough, where Garfield dreams that he's a gondolier who jumps out of his boat at the mention of imminent lasagna.  Oh, that Garfield.

But, although Venice wasn't particularly familiar to her, she did, nonetheless, find it impressive, and peering out the window of a boat was a lovely way to see it.

Our gang, plunging into the throngs of tourists

Toting our two sleeping boys, we made our way to Piazza San Marco, which really looked a little too beautiful to be for real.

But our peek inside the cathedrial would have to wait: Ella was hungry, and she promised no amount of granola bars would stave off her appetite. She'd been promised pizza. Or noodles. Or both.

Dennis, at the kids' table

We walked through the square and entered some alleys past it, and soon found a restaurant that was good enough.  "Haben Sie Pizza Margarite?" asked Ella, who has taken to speaking German to any foreigner. And, indeed, they did.

Alex had reawoken on the walk to the restaurant, and Kael, Alex, and Ella all wanted to sit together. Dennis heroically took up residence at the kiddie table while the rest of us grown-ups looked on, approvingly, and sipped our drinks

Our late lunch turned into an early dinner, as slow as the service was, and Dennis eventually took Alex out to look at some of the shops surrounding the restaurant when he got particularly wiggly. Ella, too, walked across the street to peer in the windows until the boys came back and I could take her around.  While Alex was out with his dad, he found some pretty beaded earrings that he said he wanted most of all for his souvenir: the boy likes sparkly things.  And Ella picked some Merino glass pendents, noting, as I did, that seemingly every store in Venice has a the same rack of glass jewelery and carnival masks.

Not that she was complaining: both are colorful, and it made for some delightful window shopping for the kids for the rest of the day.

When dinner was finally over, we headed back to the cathedrial, where we learned that the doors closed for the day at 5:00, and here it was just a few minutes before the hour.  Hoping, we got into the line anyway, but we were about forty people too far back. San Marco, thus, joins Ulm on the list of significant cathedrals we were too late to see.

Kael doesn't seem to mind too terribly much that we were barred

I had a wonderful time looking at the outside, however

Sleepy, sloppy Joe, wakes up from his nap

But there was a silver lining, definitely: all woes can be cured with gelato.  And so that's what we did, with Joey waking up from his epically long nap just in time to get a vanilla cone of his own.  After they finished eating, I gave the kids some old bread that I'd saved from home so that they could feed the pigeons.  But, seemingly, I'd forgotten: Joey doesn't share food. Not even with pigeons. He kept his stale bread to himself.














Alex, however, enjoyed feeding the birds, and tried to amass as large a flock as he could before the other kids ran through, scattering it.

Ice cream eaten and bellies full, we walked back across the island, taking the long walk back to the bus terminal, safe in the knowledge that we could always hop back on a water taxi if we needed to.

Playing in San Marco Square

Brie and Geoff have managed to raise their two-year-old, thus far, without ever using a stroller, but they bought one, finally, specifically for this trip.  But their little Kael never did deign to sit down, and so the stroller became a rolling backpack holder, which they had to haul over many little bridges and across cobblestones. So I'm not sure we've sold them on the value of strollers.

And Joey, energized, soon decided he had little use for his stroller, either.

We make our inefficient way across the island

And so our course was slow, with the kids being distracted by various shiny things in most of the shop windows.  If anything, all the kids had a little too much stamina: whenever the alleys opened into piazzas, they'd take off, chasing each other around, squealing, enjoying the freedom and the day.

Dennis, bless him, guided us confidently through the city.  We didn't lose a single kid. And, along the way, we got to see some really spectacular views of a really spectacular city.

The kids, taking in the Grand Canal

And my three defninitely had enough energy to walk all the way back to the buses, even in the extreme heat, with just yummy little lemon soda to spur them on, to see what was behind the next corner, and the next.

I took woefully little video today, as I was a little too dazzled by everything, myself. But here's a little of the kids, taking in Venice.