On to Venice!!

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Monday, May 24th:



Yawn!!! We woke up at 5:15 this morning, because we wanted to get an early start, and avoid rush hour traffic! We were out the door by 6:15…ready and rarin’ to go! We knew it would take us about three hours to get there going all freeway (autostrada). In Italy, you have to pay a toll on only the freeways, so when you enter the freeway, you have to stop and take a ticket. When you exit the freeway, you have to pass through another booth, put your ticket in, and it calculates how far you have gone, and charges the toll according to that. One time, while we were paying the toll, my dad dropped some coins on the ground and he got a little flustered, and for some reason the gate went up…well to our consternation, he actually went through without paying the rest! So I had to take the ticket, and read the back of it to determine what the next steps were…we sure wouldn’t want him to get mailed a huge ticket or anything!!! It said we had to mail the money to a certain place, but since it was only for Є1,40, and the euro paper denomination did not go that low, we weren’t sure how to mail coins. Well, anyway, getting waaaay ahead of myself, but that ticket was still sitting on my uncle’s counter when we left his house at the very end of our trip! LOL



The drive to Venice was really nice…the rolling hills and vineyards gave way to flat stretches of land and small towns. We stopped at an AutoGrill, which are all over Italy…instead of a “toilet only” rest stop, you get a full fledged self serve restaurant and convenience store. We had breakfast sandwiches and the best espresso ever!!! My mom had commented to me that when they were driving down from Bavaria, they had stopped at an AutoGrill and were completely in awe of how good the coffee was! We all did an awesome job navigating around and getting to our hotel (Hotel Paris) in Mestre by 9:00 a.m. Mestre is a city on the mainland, and is just a short train ride away from Venice. We chose this spot because we had all our luggage in the car, and they had secure parking. Way back when we were planning the trip, my mom and I had discussed that since we were only going to be here one night, and they had triple rooms, we could just share a room for the night. So I booked us as 3 adults….I figured Kenya could sleep with me, so I didn’t count her. Well, when we got there at nine, the agent was really nice and let us have a really early check-in so that we could spend the day in Venice. He noticed that there weren’t just three of us, so I apologized and he just charged us a little more for her…when we went up to the room, they had brought in another twin size bed and were making it up…they were so gracious about everything! My mom and I had a bit of convincing to do to my dad for all of us being in the same room!! LOL But we were only going to be sleeping there, so I think he got over the shock.



Anyway, the train station was only a few meters away, so we hopped on and rode into Venice’s station, Saint Lucia. We were well equipped with a map from the hotel, and when we arrived, we knew we wanted to take a vaporetto up the Grand Canal. We bought a 12 hour ticket for the day, and after that first ride, knew it was a waste of money!! A vaporetto is a form of transportation that Venetians use…kind of like a water bus. Well, my mom and I wanted to stand outside to take our pictures, but we were crammed in literally like sardines in a can!! There was absolutely no room to move around, and if you were in the middle and short, you had nothing to hold on to, except the person standing next to you! It was pretty bad, and hot too. The lady who let people on and off kept telling us we couldn’t stand where we were standing…quite frustrating!! So we got off at the Rialto Bridge, and slipped into the coolness of the millions of little alleyways and shops. Time for another espresso!!! J



Venice truly is a maze of little alleyways and canals…thank goodness they have signs pointing you to the larger sites. We meandered through the alleys until we came upon St. Mark’s Square. It was really beautiful, but there were sooooo many tourists and it was hot!! By that time, we were wanting to have lunch, and I also wanted to go to Murano (an island nearby, famous for its glass blowing factories). Somebody must have been looking out for us, because at that moment a man approached us and said he was from the Chamber of Commerce, and did we want a private tour of one of the glass factories, on Murano? It was free and it included a trip on a private water taxi through the city of Venice!! Of course we said yes! My dad was a little freaked out, because he thought it was a scam, and that we’d be kidnapped or all of our money would be stolen, but I assured him that I had read up on this, extensively, and all we would be subjected to was a high-pressure sales talk to buy some glass…and I was already knowing I was going to buy some glass! So we hopped in the private water taxi…it was JUST us, and it was glorious!!! About 20 minutes later, we docked on Murano, and I had just a twinge of nervousness…there were four guys sitting there smoking, and the man who turned out to be our guide sort of looked like a mobster. But we had nothing to worry about. He took us into the firing room/furnace area, and a glass worker showed us how glass is blown. He made a beautiful vase with handles and Kenya even got to go up and blow some! Then he made a horse figurine! I was completely shocked how effortless it looked, and how beautiful the horse turned out in just minutes! After that demonstration, the guy took us into the gallery, and all I can say is wow…wow…WOW!!! The chandeliers, the figurines, the bowls, everything was shiny and brilliant!! We walked through twice, not wanting to miss a thing! My mom had planned to buy some glass for her aunt’s birthday present, so she was trying to make up her mind between two pieces. The guy then said that everything was 50% off of the marked price! I had a hard time choosing between a large perfume bottle and a bowl that was made with 24 carat gold flakes and styled in the millefiori style…I ended up choosing the bowl, and I spent Є 120,00 on it!! Kenya kept asking what I would do with such an expensive bowl, and I wondered too! LOL But I LOVED it, and know it will look nice in my china hutch back home. My mom ended up buying a different large perfume bottle for her aunt, and it was sooo pretty, and very colorful! After that, we got to go into the jewelry room and I picked out a gorgeous necklace for my awesome co-worker, who was busy managing my desk at work, and two for myself! I also picked up some beads for another friend who had given me some money to buy her some Murano glass! After we left the factory, we wanted to find an outdoor café to sit at and have lunch. We tried several places, but they were all full, and there was really nothing you could do but wait until someone got up, then you had to rush and take it! I made the HUGE mistake of asking someone if they were about to leave, and the waiter bustled over and told me that in Italy, guests were NEVER supposed to be rushed or asked that question! Yikes! Anyway, after posting my mom and Kenya at one place, and my dad and I at another place, we got our table!! And we were NOT rushed! We leisurely ate our lunch and were serenaded by a man who played “O Solo Mio” on his accordion…I would definitely recommend Murano over Venice…the pace of life was quieter and more slow, and it was a lot less expensive too. I really did feel like Venice was a tourist trap. Anyway, after lunch, my mom was not feeling very well, so she and my dad went and sat in a cool church while Kenya and I explored for an hour. When we met up again, we went shopping some more and then had our daily gelato…yum…again…



The free tour did not include transportation back to Venice, so we took the vaporetto back, and it was a bit more pleasant than our ride that morning. We still had to stand, but we were on the outside, so it was nice. The ride back to St. Mark’s Square took about 25 minutes, with about 10 stops on the outer perimeter of Venice. We saw two humungous cruise ships navigating the somewhat narrow passage way and were amazed that they could do that! The larger of the two looked kind of funny, because it was pulling the tugboat, and not the other way around! We ate dinner at an outdoor café in one of the larger alleys, and we all had pizza. By then, it was getting late, so we found the Rialto Bridge, shopped a little bit more, then hopped the vaporetto back to the station..it was a nice ride back down the Grand Canal, and we got to take a lot of pictures!



We were all exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel and we decided that we had seen enough of Venice, so we would sleep in the next morning, and start our drive up to Bavaria late morning. It was probably a good thing we were so tired, because my mom and dad, and I snored like the dickens, like we were sawing logs (per Kenya), and I could corroborate because I woke up a few times and heard it too! lol

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