Venezia day uno

Greetings from beautiful Venice! Before I begin this blog I must warn a few special people in my life (Mom & Nana) that you may not like parts of this blog. There will be pigeons and there will be thunderstorms…Read on if you dare.

We slowly cruised into Venice this afternoon. There were many, many people gathered on the pool deck (including us) to take in the sights as we gradually pulled into port. You can imagine this enormous ship sailing through Venice. There were people gathered on the sidewalks pointing to us and waving as we chugged past. I finally got that Love Boat reception I keep referring to. Thank you Venice.

We passed Saint Mark’s Square which was so beautiful. We peeked into little canals and caught glimpses of huge pleasure yachts and tons of other water transportation. It took us almost an hour to get to the dock because we had to proceed very slowly. We even had a tug boat pulling us in.

Once we docked we got off the ship and got to exploring. We took a monorail from the port into the downtown area. Grabbed a map and a vaporatto (water bus) pass and we were good to go. In fact we were so on top of things this time; we helped another English speaking  family figure out the system. Well we hope that we were helpful. They are also on our ship and could hunt us down if we misguided them. Good thing Mike gave them a fake room number when they asked. 

Venice has so many foot bridges-416 to be exact. We walked across a foot bridge and down a little walkway and found ourselves on the Grand Canal. There were boats everywhere-water taxis, water police, water ambulance, water buses and of course gondolas. Mike said it looked like New York City but with boats instead of cars. It was such a cool first impression.

We walked along the Grand Canal for a bit and then got brave. We started taking right turns and walking down little side streets, over bridges and so on. It was quite an adventure. If you have been following our blog every day this is the part when I tell you we got some gelato (which we did) and it was delicious (which it was). Next is the part where we walk some more and then stop at a restaurant to eat. Pizza, pasta and lasagna were enjoyed. Wine and lemon sodas were also enjoyed.

From there we easily found the vaporatto ( well, easily might be a strong word, there were a few extra twists and turns down alley ways, over more bridges and past more little churches) and headed to St. Mark’s Square. St. Mark’s basilica is incredibly beautiful. It was past 5:00 when we arrived there, so it was already closed to tourists, but the outside was really impressive. We wandered around, oohed and ahhed, and then headed into a coffee bar where Mike enjoyed an espresso. Around this time it started pouring and the sky let out a few loud rumbles. We were indoors, once again our streak for just missing storms was intact (well for a few more paragraphs anyway).

Let me take a moment to say that while this trip is so awesome and so much fun, there have been some annoying moments. One of them happened today when a man approached Maddee and gave her a rose. She accepted and thanked him. He started walking next to her and then said to me that I had to give him some coins for the rose. I handed the rose back and said we had no money. He proceeded to say some unhappy words in a language unknown to me and walked away. Scowl! In all the cities we have been to there have been people trying to peddle things, but this guy might have taken the cake. Actually, I am sure he would have taken the cake if I was holding one. Grr!!

When the rain stopped we headed back into the open and noticed a few children with pigeons perched on their hands. The pigeons were eating kernels right out of the children’s palms and parents were snapping photos left and right. There were pigeons everywhere and many of them looked pretty downtrodden after being soaked by the storm. Of course, I think pigeons are cute (I am especially fond of the way they have perfected the head bop), but perhaps they could be considered slightly dirty little animals. I was pretty shocked to see people were allowing them to eat out of the palms of their children’s  hands. But a couple of eye lid bats from Madison and the green light from that little voice that says “Just let them do it, everyone else is doing it,” and the next thing you know my kids have bird food in their hands. There were pigeons flying up to them, landing on them and enjoying a meal. Poor Max got pooped on, but don’t worry, we have it on video, so it was worth it. We have already watched the video at least ten times. It’s really funny.

We couldn’t find a bathroom for Max to wash his hands. Just so you know, it is likely that at a later date I will do a blog on public restrooms in Europe. For now just know that they’re few and far between and the use of them will cost you about a Euro. Now if you sit down somewhere for let’s say a drink or a bite to eat, you can go ahead and use the restaurant’s bathroom. And so we just had to sit down and fill our bellies a little more, for Max’s sake of course. Mike got a latte, Madee got a milkshake, I had a delicious bellini and Max got the opportunity to wash bird poop off his hands-a win for everyone!

As we were enjoying our beverages al fresco, we looked at a stunning thunderhead forming right above the canal. The sky was lighting up with all sorts of electricity. It was a beautiful storm that may have been better enjoyed from the indoors, but it was distant enough and passed quickly. However we did take a cue from Mother Nature that maybe we had pushed our luck with the weather. So we started to make our way back to the ship. We didn’t have time for a gondola ride, I am disappointed, but we might try to squeeze one in tomorrow.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret-when we got back to the ship we went upstairs and had another snack. They say the average person gains two pounds a day on a cruise. I hope I’m not an average person. I might have to bust out some old maternity pants or some XXL sweats when these 12 days are over. I can hear my scale laughing at me from the other side of the world. But, who cares! We are on vacation!