July 14 - Venice - Visiting a Living Museum

Many guidebooks say that Venice doesn't have anything good for kids and, strictly speaking, they're right.  In fact, there's lots walking, too many stairs to make a stroller practical and many spots where a small person could easily fall into a canal so, by that measure, it probably could be considered bad for kids.  So, when we got up this morning, with our vacation fatigue at an all time high and the finish line in sight, we had low expectations for our first of 2 days touring Venice.  To improve our chances at a successful day, we split up our crew - Jack with Natalie (because he can haul her around without the stroller), and me with Charlotte and Jacqui.  That turned out to be a very successful strategy and each of our days turned out to be fantastic.  The pleasant surprises offered by traveling never cease to amaze me!  

The older girls and I set off for a mask making class.  We walked around in multifaceted figure 8's until I gave up navigating the narrow, nonsensical streets and took the water bus.  Much more pleasant than our journey on the water bus yesterday from the train station (this time without luggage, a stroller and a very vocal preschooler!)  

So we grabbed a simple lunch, enjoyed our mask making class and visited the Da Vinci museum all before meeting Jack and Natalie for an aperitivo at the Gritti Hotel's outdoor bar - right on the Grande Canal!!  Jack and Natalie went to the Biennale Art Festival.

We headed back to the piazza by our apartment for our 8:00 reservation and the girls were very excited to see the family from Boston who we'd met the evening before during a rambunctious game of tag.  The 5 girls played fairly happily together on the piazza while the parents shared travel stories and a bottle of lemonchello!  The whole day, magical!