Venice

   Right now I’m sitting in the SLC airport waiting to board and missing my little babies already. We left them both in good hands, but I’m sad I’ll be missing May’s first full day of Kindergarten. She’s so excited to start and wishes she could do full day. I feel like the last few years have slipped by so quickly I haven’t had the time to document all the sweet little things they do and say every day. 

   We have the trip planned out to the minute. As much as I wanted to sit back and relax, I couldn’t resist the urge to go full dad mode and fit in every possible sight and stop. I’m so excited to see it though. I love historic sites, and I picked this particular cruise because it’s stops were more historically relevant rather than just beaches on beaches. The cruise part I’ve found is a better way to travel islands, as well as give poor Garrett the logistics planner a break. All the driving and luggage hauling and hotel booking and indecisiveness about restaurants is exhausting and he likes to just board a ship and chill at the end of the evening. It does simplify things. 

   I feel super spoiled that I get a big cruise birthday 2 years in a row. Also we’ll be going on 2 cruises this year. It will be important to savor this one cause it will probably be the last time we can do this large of a trip for a long time. That’s fine with me though, I look forward to bringing the kids in the future. Travel is the best education in my opinion. 

   

The vaporetto ride in made us wear masks.

The hotel window haha

St. Mark's Square

Campanile bell tower, Zodiac clock and cathedral in the background

Little adorable bridges like this everywhere

Campanile bell tower.

Wandering the Grand Canal at night.

Venice took us about a day and a half to get through and I think we planned the perfect amount of time. After a rough 2.5 hour delay on our red eye flight, we finally got here tired but ready to go. Day 1 we started at 2 pm with the Rick Steves grand canal audio tour and interrupting part way through to drop off our bags at Casin de Nobili, a delightfully quaint little b&b in the heart of town, near Ca Rezzonico. Then we hit the Accademia museum which was right next to our hotel. Now looking back I think we should have saved that one for the end of the trip, after we became familiar with all the names and significance of the biggest Venetian painters. It was a good intro though, and I spent way too long on the first half not realizing how huge the museum actually is. After we headed down and did the Rick Steves Piazza de San Marco walking tour. Rick Steves is really the only way to go. Just pop in some earbuds and we both get to sync the tour and pause when we want to stop and talk or take a side trip. Much better than being in a big tour group following people around and being on a schedule. We ended with the campanile bell tower to watch sunset over Venice and hear the ear splitting bell toll 8pm 10 minutes early. Haha clocks are off here. We spent the rest of the evening wandering streets, and getting some gelato before putting our feet up and turning in. 

The balcony outside our hotel room.

   Day 2: We decided not to set our alarms after the exhausting trip the day before and slept in till 10! We both woke up and rushed out to hit the Doge’s palace first, and then again the Rick Steves Basilica di San Marco tour. After a quick stop lunch/dinner we headed to the Rialto Bridge, followed by the Frari church tour. By then all the churches were closing so we spent the rest of the evening shopping the Rialto mercato, Zara, and stopping for gelato and cannolis around town. Eventually we finished with what I think was Garrett’s favorite part, walking thé Riva, with its enormous yachts parked along the edge. Garrett took note of all the names and researched them to see who owned them. It got dark so we headed back to get some rest for the train to Trieste in the morning.    My over all impressions of Venice are that it was not the Italian city I’ve seen and expected. The narrow streets and preserved architecture far exceeded my expectations for the experience. It seemed unreal because I’ve seen so many fakes trying to falsely copy it over the course of my life. Like some kind of extremely detailed Disneyland movie set, except it was the actual backdrop of a huge amount of history. I can see why so many movies romanticize this place, it was made for the imagination. And after all the talk of stinky canals and slow rot, I was surprised to find my impression mostly favorable. Cool sea breezes and delicate ruin were my memory of the place. 

   My heart was sad to get on the train to Trieste, although the city once we arrived turned out to be much more impressive than I imagined. It even had a grande Italian piazza that we walked by on our way to the port. We boarded the ship without much touring and took an afternoon nap to recover. 

On the vaporetto ride into the town.

Rialto bridge 

In front of the Doge's palace.

Doge's palace tour.

The courtyard inside the Doge's Palace. St. Theodore and the dragon original statue from the top of the column in St. Mark's square.

Always love the doors.

Bridge of Sighs from the inside of the palace

Garrett peeking out of the window on the bridge of sighs.

St. Mark's Cathedral choir

Garrett took all the pictures inside.

Lots of Tintoretto work in here

The ancient greek horse statues from the top of St. Mark's Cathedral.

Frari Church

Gondola ride

We stopped and took a lunch break on this little gondola dock, and then got kicked off.

View down the Riva walk.