Venezia, Italy

We had a bit of an epic day yesterday.  The plan was to drive into Firenze [where we spent a day already...unblogged] and catch the train to Venezia [08:37].  We got up early and roused the children.  We were in the Peugeot at 07:00 headed to the Piazza Michelangelo [free parking].  Of course, things did not go as planned.

First, I missed the turn off and we headed to north Firenze instead of south.  This was not critical, as the train station is just north of central.  I thought I could drive into Firenze and find parking near the train.  We were able to do this with little difficulty.  We caught a cab at a nearby hotel and got to the train station at 08:00.  The train to Venezia was sold out [and, a one-way ticket was 56.00 E each].

I decided that we would go back to the car and drive to Venezia.  This was, in hindsight, a good decision.  It was a 2 1/2 hour drive through the Italian mountains, through many tunnels, into Venezia on the coast.  Parking in Venezia was also easy, as they are prepared to accommodate many tourists.


We boarded the water taxi to Venezia and immediately looked for a place to eat lunch, as everyone was starving [a common problem on this trip].

After lunch we ventured into Piazza San Marco.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piazza_San_Marco

The Basilica has some incredible sculptures

and, much to Ella's delight, the Piazza is full of very friendly pigeons.

We managed to capture her delight on film:

After frolicking with the winged rats, we got back on the water taxi and went over to Murano [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murano]  Murano is an island that is almost entirely dedicated to glass-works.  Murano was not as crowded as Venezia, which was welcome.  The glass creations were beautiful.  The only problem was the fact that we have another month of travel and cannot pack along large pieces of glassware [the rolled up pant leg look is all the rage in Italy].

After our day in Venezia, I had the privilege of driving back home, at night, through the mountains in Italy.  The traffic was insane!!  The italians are very aggressive drivers and terrible tailgaters.  You are always being pushed, often at speeds in excess of 150 km/h.  Whether they are driving an Audi or a Ford, they all think they are driving a Ferrari.  We had a high speed police chase pass us in the mountains in and out of long tunnels, which was pretty cool.  Cristin developed a minor stomach ulcer as a result of the drive home.