Day 9: Last Full Day in Venice

Today was a rough day for everyone.  This was one of our earliest wake-ups, with an appointment down at the Doge’s Palace at 9am.  My body woke me at 4.30 (pretty typical for these last few days) and I checked my texts to discover that R, who had a bit of a fever yesterday, had thrown up overnight, so D & W had taken him to the hospital here in Venice.  Only one adult was allowed back with him, so W was sitting in the waiting room, keeping us in the loop.  R only has a virus, not covid, which was great news, but when they got back to the Airbnb at around 6.30am, they zonked out immediately, and we didn’t really see them for the rest of the day.  

The rest of us got up and out the door, enjoying a quiet morning walk.

Another dumb canal.

We got to Piazza San Marco for our 9am family-friendly tour of the Doge’s Palace and St. Mark’s Basilica.  H was underslept so she grumbled for much of the morning about hurting body parts (one foot, the other foot, her knee, her ear, her nose…). We really enjoyed our family friendly tour of Gli Uffizi in Florence, and we were looking forward to this tour. Unfortunately, the tour was a bust.  Our guide with LivTours was knowledgeable about the sites, but she wasn’t able to engage with H to make the tour interesting for her.  Even when S and I tried modeling ways to keep H engaged (having her count winged lions, or make faces resembling the carvings), we never really clicked.  Plus, our guide had a very thick accent, which made it hard for her and H to communicate clearly.  I did a lot of repeating things between the two of them.

Still, the palace and the basilica were beautiful, and I’m glad we got to see them!

Meeting our guide.

    

All gondolas are built asymmetrical to allow for one sided-poling.

One of the largest indoor spaces in Europe!

H had so many questions about the prisons. 

View from the Bridge of Sighs.

After the tour, we grabbed a quick bite at a pizzeria and then headed back to the Airbnb for a siesta.  We took our time, grabbing pastries and coffee for D, a magic trick for H, and a mocha for S.  Once we got back, we were all pretty pooped, so we all settled in for a siesta.  H and I snuggled together from 2-5. She slept 2-4 and I slept 3-5.  Once we got up, I had a really hard time waking my body up.  I tried water, coffee, a brisk walk. Nothing work.  Kept staying tired.  I also had a sore throat, though S thought it was b/c I was snoring, and it _did_ go away shortly after I woke up.

Leaving D/W/R to rest, the rest of us walked across town to San Trovaso Restaurant for a new years eve meal, crossing the Ponte dell’Accademia en route.  

A boat motors down the Grand Canal.

This restaurant was also very good, though I had lost my appetite and didn’t eat much.  We had a mixed seafood antipasta to start.  S & H each had a buratta ravioli with mushroom sauce.  Mom and I had fried softshell crabs (they were tiny!  Super salty!) with a polenta that I thought was too pungent but Mom liked.  Dad had a tagliatelle with spider crabs.  

Lady and the Tramping with a breadstick.

After dinner and desert, my trio headed back amidst revelers just starting their night (and the requisite drinking and firecrackers to boot).  H was bummed that she couldn’t celebrate the actual new year, and when we told her she could when she got older, she was nonplussed.

When we got home, I dropped leftovers off for D & W and chatted with them for a few minutes.  Then, off to bed.  I was asleep by 10pm and woke the next morning on my own at 6.30 feeling better.  But that’s for tomorrow’s post!

Day 8: Buon Giorno, Venezia!

I woke up again after eight hours of sleep, but I felt rested and mostly recovered from my brief exhaustion.  Ready for another day in Italy (and hopefully pacing myself better). 

While the households were waking, Dad and I had coffee and chatted.  We noshed on some pastries too.  We had a relatively early morning though, so before long it was time to wake our people and get going!

Our first event was a 10am boat tour through the Grand Canal.  Our golf cart tour through Florence was great to orient us and help us understand the city, and this tour was that analogue.  The captain picked us up near our Airbnb (which is on the northern edge of the city), took us north into the open water, west towards the train station, and then south to enter the canal (most of the adults tracked our progress on Google Maps to identify points of interest.  We putt-putt-putted through the whole Grand Canal, passing beautiful buildings & markets, going under the Rialto Bridge, and marveling at all of the boats that have unique functions in Venice (because of course they do).  Ambulance boats? Yep.  Hearse boats?  Yep.  Trash boats? Yep.  FedEx boats?  Yep.

Accordion on a gondola!  What's more italian than that?

San Michele is an island cemetary.

FedEx Boat!

After the taxi returned us to our starting point, R went down for a nap, and S, H, and I went in search of a playground.  H has been a trooper hanging with the grownups this whole time (and R, who is a delight, isn’t really a proper playmate for her yet), so she needed some time to be a kid.  We wandered through backstreets and main drags to get to the park.

Bullet Bill on a boat!

This gull was guarding his steps and fighting any other gull who challenged him.

Beautiful veggies!

Parco Savorgnan is near the train station, one block off the main drag, tucked behind a row of houses, with little to identify it to uncurious tourists.  It had a few play structures, mostly for smaller kids, but they were all wet because of the rains.  H had fun chasing pigeons with two 4-year old twin girls, and then she swung her little heart out.

After the park, we headed back to the Airbnb, passing through Rio Terà S. Leonardo, peeking in the shops.  H picked out a nice pair of earmuffs with special pneumatic features, which she modeled throughout the walk home, including when we stopped in an old church to check out a Getulio Alviani exhibit.

The church near our airbnb is now an event space.

Shooting the picture above.

Home after the gallery for a siesta/nap.  Venice doesn’t really start serving dinner until 7pm, which makes for long days for kiddos.  Siestas are important.  H and I snuggled in bed, and she fell asleep holding my hand.

After we woke for the second half of our day, we headed off in the direction of the restaurant, poking around in shops along the way. One of our goals was the Libreria Acqua Alta, a bookstore that claims to display its books in boats and tubs so that they survive flooding.  In reality, the tubs/boats were more of a gimmick than a functional element, but the shop was cute nonetheless!  We stopped for a few photo ops in the shop, then kept wandering town and making discoveries.

Mysterious canals after dark.

Dinner was at Ostaria Boccadora, a terrific restaurant on a secluded piazza a block or two off the main drag.  We had the earliest reservations of the night, so it was empty when we walked in.  Soon, though, it was packed.  We split two huge appetizers, both of which were mixed seafood.  Boiled octopus, cuttlefish, spider crab, prawns, mantis shrimp, and creamed baccala on one dish.  Langoustines, tuna tartar, and sea bream marinated in honey, pomegranate, strawberries, and chili pepper in the other.  The entrees and desserts were yummy also, including a chocolate mousse, a top-2 tiramisu (according to S), and a rosemary panna cotta with smoked sea salt.  Yum!

R had a small fever, so D & W took him home early for bed.  When the rest of us got back, I put H to bed and then we sipped sambuca until it was time for us to zonk out.  Early morning tomorrow!

More public art:

Day 7: Italo a Venzia

I woke this morning feeling pretty crumby.  I slept for around 8 hours, but felt achey and had a small sore throat.  I was looking forward to a relatively relaxing travel day.

We checked out of the airbnb in Florence at 10am, and Massimo (our driver from our Tuscan day trip) was there to pick us up and haul us to the train station.  With eight people and their luggage, we ended up also taking a cab for overflow.  Once we got to the train station, we looked for the Italo first-class lounge, where we could relax and store our luggage while we waited for our 12.40 train.  D took R on a walkabout in the train station (he loved seeing all the people), S and I went for food/snacks, and Dad made some new friends in the lounge.  

When it was time to board the train, we hauled all of our stuff down the track and got everyone into the first-class car.  We had so much luggage that we needed storage units at both ends of the car AND overhead.  The train ride was peaceful, and we enjoyed watching the landscape change from the sunny hills of Tuscany to the grey skies of Venice.  We snoozed and chatted.

The last section of the train journey to Venice takes you right out over the water.

Once we landed in Venice, we met our boat and putt-putt-putted our way over to the airbnb.

The place we're staying is actually two sides of a duplex, each mostly a mirror image of the other, with a big common room and two decent bedrooms.  Like our Florence place, these places go light on the functional storage.  Dresser with drawers?  Bah!

After settling in, Dad, W, and I took a walk for groceries and cash.  There had been drizzle all day, so the sidewalks were shiny!

Dinner tonight was in the airbnb, provided by Chef Alessandro from TakeAChef.com.  He provided a delicious spread of food, including salmon mousse boats, creamed cod on toast, Venetian sardines with sweet pickled onions, radicchio risotto, and tiramisu.  It was so delicious, but we were so tired from the past few days that we were zonking out at the dinner table.

After dessert, we said our good nights and went next door to go to sleep.  Zzzzzzz

Day 6: Oltrarno

 The noise from the nightclub was much less last night, so we more or less had a better night's sleep. I woke up at around 6 and caught up on email while the rest of the house slept.

Our first appointment of the day was a tour of Palazzi Pitti in Oltrarno, south of the Arno river.  Pitti Palace had started initially as the family home to a Medici rival, but before long, the Pitti family went bankrupt and sold it to the Medicis.  It's now a museum, with paintings, sculpture, and gardens.  Rafaela was our tour guide, and she guided us through the main galley, pointing out her favorite pieces and answering our questions!  R joined us and was awake/alert the whole time. He wasn't particularly interested in the art, but we all worked together to try to keep him entertained.

After the tour, we went to a small wine bar right across the street for lunch.  This was the kind of place that I'd probably have skipped over if I were wandering town myself (in a prime location, menu in english, etc.), but Raffa suggested it, so we gave it a shot.  It was delicious!  W had a squid-ink gnocchi, my folks had a pumpkin flan, and Raffa and I had a chicken liver terrine with toast points (and a vin santo reduction).  Yum!  

After lunch I ducked back into Pitti Palace to check out the Boboli Gardens before meeting everyone for our afternoon event.  

The whole family reconvened for the Artisan tour. S and H joined us too (they had passed on the Pitti Palace in favor of the Leonardo Museum).  We started in a leatherworking shop, where the proprietor talked about sourcing leather, crafting goods, and how different kinds of leather are used in different pieces.  Then, we went to a papercraft shop, where H and Grandma got to decorate their own sheets of paper!  The real process involves natural dyes and smelly adhesives, but the shop put together a small demo system using acrylic paints and wallpaper glue that we could do without wearing respirators.  H made two papers, and Grandma made one.  The last shop was a mosaic and gem working shop. I missed much of this (the paper shop took longer than expected), but it also was beautiful.

After the tour was done, we said Ciao to Raffa.  Half of us took a taxi home, and D, W, R and I walked home the long way, passing through Piazza Santo Spirito and Piazza della Passera, crossing over Ponte Vecchio, and then heading for home.  

Once we got home, we tried to muster the enthusiasm to eat leftovers on our last night in Florence, but none of us could do it.  W and I went out for dinner (tagliatelle with rabbit for me, steak for him) and ended up bringing back takeout for everyone else.  

Then, W and I took H for gelato (and ended up grabbing more takeout for the rest of the gang).

By the time we ended the day, I was exhausted.  I had a bit of a sore throat and my legs hurt from a whole day on my feet. I kissed H goodnight at 9.30 and was in bed myself by 9.45.  

More public art!