20 Weeks RTW: Saturday, May 6 (week 15 / day 104) Venice, Italy

Breakfast in Budoia

This true B&B has been voted our favorite place to stay not simply because ot the awesome breakfast factor but the comfort of the beds, the tons of hot water, regular home décor, washer AND a dryer & hosts to visit with, do our dishes & make our beds each day! It's a step up from any of the places we've stayed.

homemade baked goods, jams, yogurt & quality juice for breakfast

honey with nuts for your bread or yogurt

The Train to Venice

We decided not to fight traffic into Venice & took the train in from Sacile which is about 20 minutes from Budoia. We met a girl named Amanda stationed at Aviano Air Force Base who took our picture & then gave us some travel tips for Switzerland & Iceland. The train ride took about an hour & 20 minutes, worth every penny for me not having to drive!

waiting on the train platform in Sacile

I wish our weeds were poppies

Amanda giving Stacia travel tips

chillin' on the train to Venice

Venice Tour

From the train station we made our way on foot across Venice to meet our guide at a certain fountain in Rialto Market. She jumped right in & talked on & on about the history & architecture of Venice. We had previously arranged for another family friendly tour similar to our great Colosseum experience but were disappointed when it was cancelled at 6:30 the night before (because of a death in the family of the tour guide). So Stacia went to work trying to find a replacement. After emailing 13 guides, two were available. One looked to be in her late 60's and was a history and philosophy specialist so we picked the other with no knowledge of her. I told her I hoped she could make it fun for the kids and she tried but it wasn't quite the same. However, overall we voted we still enjoyed having a tour guide. It certainly enhances the experience over just walking around the city without learning anything about it.

No, we never took a gondola ride since the pics seemed cool enough. Even the kids weren't really interested. I think we have been on enough slow touristy boat rides to guess how the experience would be. Plus, we didn't really encourage it. It's about $88 for a 40 minute ride! I was surprised the gondolas were black and glossy and had some Asian influenced decorations. Our guide said this demonstrated the influence of the "oriental" culture when East met West in Venice.

The best spot on the tour was a quiet courtyard she took us to so we could relax from the crowds. Here she told us about regular life in Venice and water collection. Cannon decided to be a fountain on top of one of the many covered cisterns we saw. We thought he was the cutest fountain in Europe!

We had heard Venice can really feel packed. It was quite busy concentrated in the "touristy" spots but overall was not as crowded as expected. We think the weather forecast may have lightened the numbers. It was cool and supposed to rain starting around 2:00 but we felt quite lucky with one short rain and then it stopped until we were heading for the train to go home.

We enjoyed walking around all small streets and looking at the fun shops. Stacia really likes glass and it was fun to see all the glass products. And I think all the girls thought it would be fun to try on one of the carnival dresses they had on display. Of course all the mask shops are great and they had some really neat string puppets that are now quite interesting to Kyra and Cannon.

We ate some hand made chocolates (which actually didn't seem to taste anything special) and had lunch at a cute shop selling good pizza.