Venice in 3 days with kids in tow - lots of gelato!

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The benefits of being Europe based is popping over to Venice on an hour flight from Geneva. Murray having just returned from a work trip to Algeria, stayed in the airport to meet us for our flight out, poor him!

Venice is definitely one for the bucket list. We were impressed with how clean Venice was, as often European cities are not.

We stayed on the main Island (45mins from the airport, 27 euro return trip ferry per person) which was great as everything we wanted to do was within 20 minutes walking from our accommodation. On the first day we wandered the maze like streets, often getting stuck at canals, having to locate a bridge to get over them. It was very hot and we did have a moment of 'what were we thinking doing a city holiday in July with kids?!'. Kids were fed a lot of bribery gelato to get them through the day. We managed to see St Mark's Basilica, Piazza San Marco and the Ponte di Rialto. We enjoyed some window shopping and wandered around some more.

Day 2 we got a family day pass for the boats. We went to two islands: Murano (famous for glass making) and Burano (famous for lace and brightly, coloured buildings). We absolutely loved the boat rides and both islands. This was the highlight of our trip. We managed to see some glasses being made, which fascinated the kids. They each got a special necklace much to their delight, easy to please. Burano was fun, the different colours were fun to take photos of and beautiful in a strange way. We enjoyed more gelato and I enjoyed many cappuccinos.

Day 3 was when we remembered why city holidays were easier without kids, so we found a park (Giardini della Biennale) with a playground or 2 and then playground hopped our way back to the main town to get a boat back to the airport to come home.

In all honesty, 2 days would have been enough. We did have a lovely time and the kids did enjoy it, except for the heat.

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