Venice

Today we were meeting Stewart's sister Debbie and her husband Mark with two of their kids Matthew and Liz in Venice. We drove our Suburban and parked in a parking structure on the edge of the city, then took a train into the city. I think this was the highlight of the boys day.



Our niece Liz actually has been living in Florence for about a year and was our tour guide for the day. We met them at the train station and started walking through the city.

We are discussing where we need to go to get tickets to tour Doge's Palace. I stayed in St. Mark's square with the kids while some of the other adults went off to purchase tickets. Thank goodness for Burger King, because Thomas and Zachary got hacky sacs in their kids meal, which kept them entertained for awhile.

Cassidy wasn't interested in playing with the boys, but the birds interested her.





























A lady in the square gave Zachary and Cassidy some bread to feed the birds. Zachary really thought he could catch one.

After chasing all the birds away, we moved to the line to enter into the Palace.

I stepped away from the line to take a few pictures.


















We toured the Doge's Palace and even were directed into a secret entrance because we had a stroller. OK, it wasn't a secret entrance, but it was it sure seemed like we were going someplace where we shouldn't be. The boys really liked the armory. They had an incredible huge selection of weaponry.

The tile mosaics were my favorite. I guess it comes from my years of teaching tiling classes at the Home Depot and could only imagine the work that went into designing and laying these floors.

Thomas is on Stewart's shoulders taking in the view of The Saint Mary of the Friars Basilica. I don't know the name of the church on the right.

We took a water taxi to Murano. Zachary had enough of the site seeing and decided on a nap.

Thomas had fun on the ride. Cassidy is posing for a picture as we pass Cemetery Island of San Michele.

It was fun wandering around the "streets" of Murano. At one point Thomas asked me where all the cars were.

We finally found a place to refill our water bottles and for Cassidy to cool off.

This big blue sculpture was across the river. Cassidy thought it looked like a meteor. And I think it was actually named Blue Meteorite. Thomas called it the big blue star.

We didn't make it to the glass factory. They had just closed when we found them. But we did tour a glass museum. The boys were not really eager to go to museum. So to peak their interest, I told them they needed to try and find a glass gun. They really liked the guns and swords in the Doge's Palace. Well, I never guessed that the first room we would go into had glass guns. So after they found them, they were ready to leave. On our way back to the water taxi stand, we found a glass shop. Stewart bought Cassidy her very own glass ring. She picked out the colors and watched as the man made her ring.


























Our day was coming to an end. So we walked around the city a little bit more on our way back to the train. I was really thankful to have Matthew around to help me carry the stroller (and Zachary) up and down all the stairs. It seemed we would cross on bridge and then have to cross another. And they were not equipped with any handicap ramps. When Thomas was lucky enough to get to ride in the stroller, I made him get out of the stroller to walk up and down the stairs. Thomas is just too heavy.

We ended our tour of Venice on the Rialto Bridge. I left the stroller at the bottom of the stairs for this trip. We weren't crossing it, just site seeing.