Day 12 - Entry into Venice

Venice is very different sailing in from the Med vs coasting in from the train. The port isn’t really anywhere near … anywhere… whereas the train dumps right next to a main vaporetto stop. So, we got off the ship and began walking… and walking… and it was cold… and breezy… and while the children kept saying they were “fine”, my ears went numb and then began to hurt. A hat, a hat, my kingdom for a hat. Sigh.

Our second discovery is that not only the different views… but the price of getting around Venice has more than tripled in the last 10 years. Thankfully children are still free (a benefit we’ve discovered with public transportation all over Italy), but it cut quite a bit into the “Souvenir Shopping” budget. Took a vaparetto (water bus) over to the Piazza de San Marco (St. Mark’s Square) and it was C-R-O-W-D-E-D. The population of Venice is about 24,000 people I hear… and the 8 cruise ships docked in the port nearly equaled that!

Because the game of “Pretend” wasn’t really going to work in Venice, my MIL had purchased a little book called “Treasure Hunt” by a group called “Kids in Europe”. It gives a list of things to look for, find, count, explain, etc, all for points… and then at every 40-50 points you’re awarded something like a gelato, or a souvenir (at the scorekeeper’s discretion), or a slice of pizza, etc. The kids began counting “Winged Lions” (the symbol for Venice) when we exited the ship.

We journeyed into the Basillica and it was BEAUTIFUL! Ancient mosaics from the 15th & 16th centuries, a background of gold… and of course, the slanted and rolling floor all throughout. The 4 Euro to the top of the church was worthwhile (esp. since the kids turned out to be free) and yielded not only a view from the roof and the 4 cavaligi (horses), but the original horses that were “war booty” from Constantinople in the 2nd century, I think and a museum that wound around and around. About halfway through the museum there was a drink machine that had both kinds of water found in Italy. “FIzzy” and “Sanza Gas”. Well, I like the bubbles, but most others in our group don’t care for it, so we usually get the “Sanza Gas”. I told DH to go ahead and get the “Gas” and we’d see what the kids thought (snicker snicker)… and in turn, each of the kids gave a look of surprise, a wrinkled up face and then passed it to the next one. I told DS1, “It’s just like Sprite, except without the Limon” to which he didn’t miss a beat and said, “Well, Mom, that Limon must do a lot… a WHOLE lot” – ROFLOL!!!!

A trip back out of the church and my MIL decided to reward the kids with their gelato at only 6 points in. Sweetie pointed out that this was really too early for our gelato and we hadn’t earned enough points yet… would we have to give it back if we didn’t earn enough points? (She’ll handle credit with no problem when she’s older – LOL).

Since it was Sunday, my IL’s opted to head for church (you can’t sling a dead cat without finding a church around here – LOL) and DS1 decided to go with him. DH & I opted to take the other 3 around the streets of Venice, take pictures… and meet back in an hour with the instructions that if we missed each other, we’d just meet back at the ship. Not a bad plan. (Remember those words)

It had warmed up, only to be cooling off again and as the streets are narrow and the buildings are high (they can’t exactly spread out in Venice), the shade was noticeably chilly. Then I heard those words no parent likes to hear when out and about in a strange city, “Mommy, I have to go potty.” Sigh.

The problem with Italy, is that you very often have to pay for restrooms. I don’t mean that you need to purchase something in a store to use the restrooms for customers, but they have “public restrooms” with an attendant (or even a turnstile, an ATM & an attendant) to use the facilities. The girls find this to be “ridiculous” and “crazy”. We find such a place and the gentleman (yes, it was a unisex restroom with about 15 stalls) let me in with the girls for the bargain price of 2 Euros vs. the 4.50 Euros it might’ve cost by the sign on the wall. Oh dear.

That done, we journeyed back downstairs and continued on our route to find the Ponte Realto (Realto Bridge)… up side streets, across many less descriptive (ie. Unnamed) bridges… and found the Ponte Realto, took a few pictures and found the vaparetto to head back to the ship. The moment we boarded DH realized that while we had “swapped children” when DS1 opted to go with the IL’s to church, we’d never swapped boarding passes. Oh dear… we likely weren’t going to get back on the ship with the cards we had. We had ours, and Sweetie’s, but Doodlebug & Boo-Boo’s were with the IL’s and DS1’s was in DH’s pocket. Not good.

Unfortunately, in spite of the sign indicating 5 stops b/t where we boarded and the ship’s exit, the vaparetto made NO stops (so there was no way to go back and catch them before church ended) and we decided to see what we could do, even if all it accomplished was one of us taking Sweetie upstairs and the other waiting in the ship’s hold (or whatever the call the 0 deck) for the IL’s to arrive back. As it turns out, while it DID take a bit of explaining, some “electronic messages” on the 3 kids’ computer entry “thingies”, and a little more verification … we DID all gain entry to the ship, and good thing, too, b/c the IL’s didn’t return for another 2+ hours… where it still took a bit to straighten out, but no real “problem” .