Italy Day 1- Venice

Or Venezia, as the locals call it! After a short drive from Verona, we got to Venice Island- You have to park in a huge parking garage and take a "vaporetto" boat to actually get to the Island. It was a little stressful getting all that figured out, but we made it onto the boat. Here we are on our way to Venice: And we made it onto the island, and navigated our way to the hotel- This is our little apartment that we rented. It was right near the center of all the action, just a few blocks from St. Mark's Square. The streets are so tiny that it wasn't really possible to get a shot of it from across the way, just kind of a shot looking up at the side of the building.

After we got settled in our Apartment, we headed out to find some dinner. We were very excited to find some authentic Italian food in Italy...

Along the way we saw this place, with their seafood display outside in the window. This lobster is HUGE!! The kids thought it was so cool, and when we stopped to look up close, we realized that it was still moving! Isaac and Daphne thought that was pretty awesome.

Since they had such an awesome lobster and we were completely starving, we decided to stop here for dinner. Here we are awaiting our yummy dishes!

And here we are enjoying our delicious, real Italian food in ITALY!! I love this picture- I think it is one of my very favorite pics from Europe. And I have to admit, that was some fabulous food!

After our delicious food, we headed out to explore St. Mark's Square. The winged lion is Venice's chief symbol, representing freedom and victory. We saw lions everywhere.

This is St. Mark's Basilica:

The kids and me in front of St. Mark's Basilica, which is an amazing piece of architecture. It was buily in the 11th century, and houses the bones of many Catholic Saints...Another lion:

We saw plenty of dogs out and about, and Tori got plenty of barking in. Dogs are just about her favorite thing in the universe and everytime she sees a dog or even a picture of a dog, she points and makes the cutest barking sounds. It is truly one of the cutest things ever- and of course we have been unable to capture it on video. Anyway, here she is stalking this little dog. Too Cute!

Matt and the kiddos in front of Doge's Palace:

This is the top of one of the clock towers on St. Mark's square. This clock tower was built in 1496! I read that in the 17th century, a worker was killed when one of the bronze mechanical bell ringers knocked him off the tower. Isaac and Matt thought that was really funny. The boys always enjoy an unneccesary violent anecdote.

Then we went exploring in Venice- look how cute my people are!!!

I'm not really sure what this is- but it looked cool, so we took a picture!

I have to admit- I loved Venice. Loved it. I loved the ambiance- I loved the scenery -I loved the food. I loved Venice the way I thought I would love Paris. The people here were like the Southerners of Europe. More outgoing, friendly and the whole place was just hoppin'.

We walked along to the Rialto Bridge- the kids and I are there on the top. You can see us better in the next pic.

By about this time, the kiddos were completely exhausted from our day's adventures, so we headed back to our little apartment and got them to bed for the night. Our place was a little rough around the edges, very old and out- of-date, but it was clean and had air conditioning- and what more can a girl ask for in Venice?

We got the kiddos to sleep, which was great. But we had heard that you have to experience Veince at night. Since we didn't have that luxury, Matt ran out and took pictures of a few more sights. One of which was this church:

We have been a little floored by churches here; how they often seem more like tourist attractions than places of worship... One of the particularly interesting things is that they often proclaim to have special holy artifacts in order to bring more tourists to the Church. This particular one claims to house the tomb of Zaccharias. That's right. They say they have the body of John the Baptist's Father. Our friends went to Belgium and visited a Church that claims to have a vial of Christ's blood. Very interesting....

This is St. Mark's Square after dark- definitely has a different feel. No massive crowd of tourists, just music and dining and dancing.

It was after Matt's little excursion outside that we realized that Venice is one place we would truly love to re-visit later in life, just as a couple. We had a blast with our kids, but it would be lovely to experience the city just as grown ups! So far, that list includes Rome, Greece, Hawaii and now, Venice, too. I guess we'll start saving our pennies!

Stay tuned for more Venice pics soon!