Venice (at long last)

Sorry for the lack of posting recently. No good excuses really. But here's a summary of the Venice trip and pictures. I was hoping to just link to Midwesterners blog, but they seem to have outlasted me in resisting the guilt trip from our mother (yes, she's posting!) about posting pictures of the trip.

Our flight out of Shannon was delayed by nearly 2 hours. So we took turns wrangling Silas in the departures area and reading the guide book. Thoughtfully we had packed snacks for everyone which ended up turning into dinner with the addition of some much needed caffeine in the form of coffee. The flight was uneventful although a nice German couple with a boy about Silas's age sat in front of us so we chatted with them and the kids played peek-a-boo with each other and passed their toys back and forth between the seats. It definitely made the flight go by more quickly. We arrived in Treviso and bought bus tickets from the airport to Venice without too much difficulty. Silas finally fell asleep on the bus.

When we arrived in Venice we were supposed to take the No. 1 water bus to the La Salute stop near the apartment where we would call Rachel and Trey and they would give us directions to the apartment, or meet us at the stop. A couple things conspired against this plan however. The No. 1 bus/boat had stopped running by this time of night and Trey's cell phone did not work in the apartment and then ran out of minutes. So a slight change of plans left us taking another bus to a stop we though was near the La Salute stop and walking. It was about 1 in the morning and the streets of Venice are pretty much all dark, narrow, alleys. It was a little scary at the time. But we were totally safe. Luckily we packed light and Silas was exhausted and sleeping instead of exhausted and screaming. Trey was waiting for us at the bus stop and we walked maybe 2 "blocks" to the apartment.

Rachel and Ellis were already asleep but Rachel woke up and we visited with them a little bit before wrestling Silas back to sleep. We had planned on him just sleeping in bed with us, which we might not be able to do so much in the future. He seems to think in bed with Mom and Dad is synonymous with both nursing and playing around. So I'd be nursing him, he'd be closing his eyes and I'd think, he's almost asleep. Then his little blonde head would pop up and he'd giggle and say "diggle diggle!" Maddening. Cute, but maddening.

The last night we wised up a bit and put him of the floor on some couch cushions. He still woke up about three times in the night but he'd fall asleep a bit easier and stay asleep for longer than 30 minutes at a time without nursing.

Saturday Trey went out to get coffee and pastries for breakfast and then we headed to the Rialto Bridge for the market. On the way we stopped for some panini sandwiches which were quite good. Although there was a little embarrassing encounter when we tried to sit at the tables outside with our sandwiches. Although we had all read that there is a different price for eating in and take-away, none of us remembered this until the woman came out and said, "Different price to stay!"

The market was the highlight of the trip in my opinion. The stalls were overflowing with mushrooms, grapes, tomatoes of all varieties, olives, bright orange clementines mingles with leaves, fresh herbs, artichokes, eggplants, and on and on. It was gorgeous. Then there was the fish market. We didn't even know what a lot of the creatures were or if we did, we didn't know how best to prepare them. There were live shrimp of all shapes and sized, crabs, scallops still in the shell, monkfish, squid, octopus, even a swordfish head! We had to keep telling ourselves that we would only be there three days, and not to buy more than we could eat in that time. It was pretty difficult! We stopped in at a little butchers shop, but after waiting for 20 minutes and being passed up several times we decided to abandon the endeavor. We did see these little salamis shaped like pigs, and I got this great photo of Trey looking like a pig in sh*t contemplating the various charcuterie.

We headed back to the apartment to stash out purchases in the fridge and then made for San Marco. We had a couple big slices of pizza on the way and stopped in several stationary and glass shops. San Marco is big square that features the Basilica of St. Mark and the Doge's Palace. There is also the Correr Museum, a bell tower, and rows and rows of shops. We wandered around the Basilica and marveled and the gorgeous mosaics and inlays in the floor and the walls.
Afterwards we headed back to the apartment was we were all getting pretty tired of carrying the babies and walking.

We were unsuccessful in finding a grocery store that was ever open, although Trey did manage to get some essential pasta and Parmesan before the shop owner shoved him out. And Orrin and I procured some olive oil, nice white wine, an a bottle of Prosecco. So our meal for the evening consisted of the following: The most delicious shrimp I have ever eaten. And that is really saying something because they were naked- no lemon or butter or cream. Trey sauteed the zucchini in a little olive oil and poached the fish with some white wine and fennel. He cooked some pasta with a few mushrooms, leeks, and olive oil, which we tossed together with a little cheese. Everything was delicious! For dessert we had some chocolate truffles and the Prosecco, while we played cribbage. We had actually gone 24 hours in Italy with no gelato, something we would have to remedy the next day!

Sunday we walked back to San Marco to catch a boat out to Murano Island. This is the home of the Venetian glass studios so we had hoped to see some demonstrations of glass blowing. We only saw one place with a furnace lit and they had a sign that read "The work is finished." Translations can be so funny. So we were a little disappointed in that, especially since we had waited nearly an hour for the boat. It comes ever 20 minutes, but we missed 2 of the because there were loads of people trying to cram on to the tiny boat and the impatient conductors seemed to like to pull away ASAP regardless. But the island was very peaceful and pretty. We had a nice lunch by the canal and Silas chased pigeons around and tried to jump in the water.

Again, by the time we returned from the island we were pretty pooped so we all planned to head back to the apartment for an early dinner. The boat journey revitalized Orrin and I so we headed to the Frari church while our companions went home to grab a nap. The church was very dark but had some beautiful paintings, sculptures, and carvings. My favorite was Bellini's Madonna and child. It was so vibrant and gorgeous, and really nice to see a masterpiece like that in a church instead of in a museum.

That evening's dinner was a little more scattered, thanks to the lack of a grocer. Still we had a nice meal of pasta and mushrooms with cheese, radichio and apples salad, and broad beans with tomatoes. It didn't really matter what we had for dinner though because dessert was, as was aptly described in the guide book. " a dense brick of chocolate hazelnut gelato dropped into a cup of whipped cream." Needless to say it was fantastic, although it probably would have been better if we had not been so impatient to eat it and would have left the ice cream to soften a little before chiseling away at it.

Monday we packed up our luggage and took the boat to the train station to check our luggage, since we had to be out of the apartment at 10 and our flight didn't leave until 9 we didn't want to be hauling the bags everywhere. After that was settled we toured the Doge's Palace which had magnificent ceilings and, if I remember correctly, the longest canvas painting in the world. There was a competition for who would be commissioned to make the painting and they had all the competitors submissions displayed as well. It was kind of fun to pick your favorite out of ten or so paintings that were all of the subject, just different interpretations. The arches in the back of the pigeons pictures are of the Doge's palace. Silas didn't actually touch a rat with wings, but he did get some poop on his pants.

There were really interesting descriptions in English about each rooms function in the government, the works of the various artists, and how each Doge left his mark on the palace, but Silas didn't exactly allow for leisurely reading. I did learn a few things about Venetian history though.

We raced though the Correr museum, which had even more in depth descriptions about Venetian history. It was very warm though and Silas was really sick of the stroller and being indoors entirely. So I can't say I remember too much of the museum at all.

We walked with Rachel and Trey to the bus stop and bid them farewell since they had an earlier flight back to Germany. We than walked up to Venice's park and Silas ran around in the leaves and played on the playground. We meandered back through a couple neighborhoods we hadn't passed through before and stopped and had a snack of roasted chestnuts. Neither Orrin nor I had ever tried them but we all enjoyed them. Even Silas seemed to like them. So we'll have to try those again at the German Christmas markets in a few weeks.

We had a bit of a hard time finding the train station since we were navigating on foot instead of the bus, but we eventually found it. We both had another round of pizza and gelato and gawked at the touristy area by the rail station that we had missed before. As we waited for the bus we just sat in the park and watched the people and the boats zip up and down the canal. Silas ran around and got good and tired- although the same little boy was on the flight home so he didn't sleep much on the flight. But we had a great trip. It was really fun to meet family somewhere for the weekend and get to sight-see a gorgeous city and visit and cuddle our adorable nephew.

(apparently they were playing rock, paper, scissors. Orrin was slow to catch on that Ellis always picks rock.)