Ryan, Debi, and Toren Cragun's Blog

This was our second full day in Venice, and while we didn’t technically have as much planned as the previous day, because of the gorgeous weather, it seems like we got to see a lot more of the city.

We started the day with a 9:30 am visit to the Doge’s Palace.  The Doge was the big cheese during the Venetian Republic, though he couldn’t, technically, make any real decisions without the approval of the senate.  His palace doubled as the center of government that included an aristocratic democracy and various committees and judges.  The Palace itself is pretty remarkable.  Again, we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, so I didn’t, but you can see some great pictures of some of the rooms (which are enormous considering when they were built) here.  Here’s a shot of Debi, Steve, and Rosemary in front of the Palace:

Debi, Steve, and Rosemary in front of the Doge's Palace

And here’s a shot of St. Mark’s Campanile and the Piazza San Marco from the corner of the Doge’s Palace:

Piazza San Marco from in front of the Doge's Palace

I did sneak one shot while in the Palace.  From the Palace you can cross the Bridge of Sighs I mentioned in my post yesterday.  It’s the bridge to the prison.  I guess you could say it was convenient to have a bridge directly from the court where prisoners were sentenced to their jail where they served their time.  But, admittedly, the view would make you sigh.  Here’s Toren checking it out with Debi:

Toren and Debi looking out from the Bridge of Sighs

The photo is washed out as I took it on my cellphone.  I was trying to be discreet because we weren’t supposed to take photos.

I also filmed this clip of Toren climbing the stairs in the Doge’s Palace:

He wasn’t interested in the amazing artwork or architecture, but he did enjoy climbing the marble stairs.

We spent a good couple of hours at the Palace, then we walked up to Campo San Bartolomeo, which is in the heart of the various shopping districts and close to the outdoor market (which is on the other side of the Rialto Bridge) for lunch.  We had lunch at a restaurant right in the Campo, then split up.  Brent, Ethan, and Gary went back to the condo to take a nap.  Rosemary and Suzy went shopping.  And Steve, Debi, Toren and I went on an adventure.  Our goal: Cross all four Grand Canal bridges (Rialto, Accademia, Calatrava, Scalzi) in a single day and take pictures on as many bridges as we could.  Here’s a rough sense of our plan (and what we did, but Google Maps won’t go over the Calatrava Bridge walking for some reason):

View Larger Map

This is actually much easier than we thought, as Venice is quite small.  The hardest part is just figuring out where you’re going.  Anyway, here are a bunch of photos of us on different bridges:

Toren, Ryan, and Debi on the Rialto Bridge

Debi and Steve on the Rialto Bridge

From the Rialto Bridge we walked through the outdoor market and then got lost in Venezia Sestiere San Polo working our way toward the Scalzi Bridge.

Debi, Ryan, and Toren on a smaller bridge (don't know the name)

Steve and Debi on a smaller bridge

We stopped for gelato at one point since, well, you can never get enough Italian gelato. Here are Steve and Debi ordering their gelato:

ordering gelato in Venice

Debi and Steve eating gelato on another bridge

We eventually made it to the Scalzi Bridge. It was nice just wandering around and not worrying about having to be anywhere.

if you look close, you'll see Toren and I on the Scalzi Bridge

Toren, Debi and I on the Scalzi Bridge

Steve and Debi on the Scalzi Bridge

Steve and Debi on the Calatrava Bridge

Toren, Ryan, and Debi on the Calatrava Bridge

After crossing the Calatrava Bridge, we paused to change Toren’s diaper (on the side of a canal, of course):

changing Toren's diaper by a canal in Venice

We then stopped for a bit to let Toren run around in a plaza.  He wasn’t interested in the gondolas gliding past, or the other boats, or even the water for that matter.  He was interested in the pine needles that had fallen off the pine tree in the middle of the plaza.  And he was adorably cute as he walked around, so I did an impromptu photo shoot of him in Venice:

Note all the gondolas lined up in the background.

I snapped a couple of Debi as well:

And here’s some footage of Toren running around the plaza:

After Toren’s break in the plaza, we continued our trek back toward the Accademia Bridge, crossing more small bridges along the way:

Debi and Steve on another bridge

It took us a while, but we eventually made our way to the Accademia Bridge:

Steve and Debi on the Accademia Bridge

While wandering around in the south west region of Venice, we realized it isn’t as busy as the area near Piazza San Marco and, amazingly, it’s less expensive.  We even scouted out a restaurant for our last night in Venice.  If you have free time in Venice, definitely check out areas further away from Piazza San Marco; they are calmer, which is nice given the bustle around the Piazza.

We made it back to the condo around 3:30, just in time to take a break before we headed out for a gondola ride.  Of course, when you’re in Venice you have to go on a gondola ride, even though it’s something of a racket (80 euros for 40 minutes – crazy!).  But I’m glad we did, not only because I can say that I’ve been in a Venetian gondola, but because it’s actually quite relaxing and calming once you leave the Grand Canal and head down the side canals (we went down Rio de San Maria Zobenigo).  It’s calm and quiet and very peaceful.  We snapped a few pictures of the gondola ride as well, of course:

Gary, Rosemary, Brent, Suzy, and Ethan in their gondola; their gondolier sang them a song spontaneously; pretty cool

Debi, Toren, and I, and yes, Toren's hand is where you think it is; that's one more thing he's done that most people hasn't, been breastfed in a Venetian gondola

our gondolier chatting on his iPhone

After the gondola ride, we crossed over the Accademia Bridge and had dinner at a nice little restaurant, Restaurant de Traviso, with a covered patio.  It was the best and cheapest food we had in Venice.  They were also very accomodating of our kids, which was good because Toren and Ethan were all over the place.  This is a great place for a quiet dinner away from the crowds.

After dinner, Brent, Suzy, Ethan, Rosemary, and Debi went to a fashion show in Piazza San Marco and Steve, Gary, Toren and I got gelato in the campo right by our condo and hung out.  Every place we visited there were people hawking small trinkets.  One of these guys was hawking bouncing balls that light up when you bounce them in the plaza.  He was slick.  While Toren was running around, he grabbed one of his balls, bounced it so it lit up, then handed it to Toren.  You would have thought Toren won the lottery.  I couldn’t pry it away from him without him putting up a serious fight and crying.  So I ended up buying it.  I’m not usually one for buying toys spontaneously, so I was bit perturbed, but watching Toren play with the ball was pretty darn cute.  In fact, lots of people in the campo thought he was cute, so it was probably worth it.

We did have a minor issue at the end of the night.  Debi said she’d be home at 10:00 pm, which is about when Toren was going to sleep at this point.  Toren was clearly tired by 9:45, but Debi has been nursing him to sleep and well, that’s something I can’t do.  So, come 10:00 pm, when Debi hadn’t returned from the fashion show, Toren started to cry… Then scream…  He wanted his mom and his milk.  The sippy cup with milk and cuddling I tried just didn’t cut it.  He wore himself out crying and screaming by 10:30 and fell asleep.  Debi got home at 10:35.  That was a bit perturbing, but otherwise it was a good night.

While visiting with my friend Mark and his wife and kids in Arizona, one of his kids, Noah, was asking me various questions about animals. One of the questions he asked was whether or not I could show him a picture of the rhinoceros from the Ice Age movie. He was talking about this rhinoceros:

I spent about 30 minutes trying to find out exactly which rhinoceros this is out of the many in the evolutionary tree of rhinoceros (family: rhinocerotidae).  Turns out, they aren’t real rhinoceroses.  They are based on the woolly rhino (Coelodonta Tologoijensis), but clearly are the result of artistic license.  Here’s what the actual woolly rhino would have looked like:

woolly rhino (Coelodonta Tologoijensis)

I figured I’d post this for anyone else looking for this so they don’t spend 30 minutes trying to figure out which species of rhinos are in the movie “Ice Age.”

(Source.)

Unfortunately, the day we had the most planned in Venice was also the day that it rained.  We started out with an 11:00 am walking tour of the city (in the rain) that started at the Royal Gardens (Giardinetti Reali) near Piazza San Marco.  Our guide walked us around the Piazza, explaining its history.  There are four major buildings surrounding the square: The Doge’s Palace (Palazzo Ducale), the Marciana Library (Biblioteca Marciana), Saint Mark’s Basilica (Basilica Cattedrale Patriachale di San Marco), and the Procuratie, which is made up of several buildings: the Procuratie Vecchie, Procuratie Nuove, St. Mark’s Clocktower, and the Napoleonic Wing of the Procuraties.  There’s also a large bell tower in the middle of the square, St. Mark’s Campanile (Campanile di San Marco), which you can climb (we didn’t but should have).  One of our first stops was the Doge’s Palace, but we didn’t go in (we visited it the next day, though).  We also stopped at the the Bridge of Sighs (Ponte dei Sospiri), which is a bridge from the Doge’s Palace, where criminals were sentenced, to the prison, where they served their time.  The bridge was named by Lord Byron based on the suggestion that prisoners would sigh at their final view of beautiful Venice before being taken down into their cells.  Here’s Debi in front of what can be seen of the Bridge of Sighs (a lot of Piazza San Marco was under renovation when we visited):

The Ponte dei Sospiri or Bridge of Sighs is the white bridge you can see just above Debi's head (for a better picture, see here)

From here we walked to Saint Mark’s Basilica.  It would be a major understatement to call this church “gaudy”.  Apparently it’s nickname is the Church of Gold, which makes sense given that there are, according to our tour guide, 8,000 square meters of gold leaf on the ceiling and walls.  Here’s a shot of the outside:

Saint Mark's Basilica

Our tour included entrance into the Basilic (without waiting, which was nice given the lines).  You’re not supposed to take pictures inside, so we didn’t.  But someone did and posted it on Wikipedia, so you can see that I’m not kidding about the gold leaf.  The Basilica is a pretty good illustration of just how wealthy the Venetians were at the height of their power.  After the Basilica, our guide walked us through a number of Venetian streets and alleys, stopping at some of the churches and other places of interest, including the general whereabouts of Marco Polo‘s home in Venice (it’s no longer standing, but they know about where it was).  Our tour ended around 1:30 near the Rialto Bridge, which is one of four bridges that crosses the Grand Canal.  It rained during the whole tour.  After the tour ended, we headed back to the condo.  The rain stopped just as we got back to the condo, of course.

Steve and I went out and got pizza and paninis for everyone for lunch.  We ate in the condo so we could dry out.

We had another tour – a boat tour of Venice – scheduled for 4:20 that left from Piazza San Marco.  It wasn’t raining while we walked to the Piazza, but as soon as we got on the boat, a massive storm hit.  It was bad enough that the boat driver pulled up a side canal and tied the boat up for about 10 minutes to wait out the worst of it.  The rain was so bad we could barely see out the windows of the boat, both from the windows fogging up on the inside and from the rain on the outside.  To wipe the fog off the windows we ended up using some of Toren’s diapers from his backpack.  Despite the terrible weather, we continued the tour and learned some interesting things about Venice from our very nice and knowledgeable tour guide.  Not having spent much time thinking about the trip beforehand, there was a lot I didn’t know about Venice.  Here are some of the interesting nuggets of information I learned:

• The Venetians were a separate city-state from the rest of Italy up until the early 1800s (after they were conquered by France a couple of times under Napoleon).  During that time the Republic of Venice was quite powerful and obviously very wealthy.  Their wealth derived from their sea trade and most of the territory they controlled was coastal.
• While Catholic, the Venetians did not follow political instruction from the Pope and kind of kept their distance religiously as well, but recognized the Pope’s supremacy religiously.
• Venetian is a separate language from Italian.  Many Venetians still speak it.
• At it’s peak, about 250,000 people lived in Venice.  Today it’s about 60,000.
• The word “ghetto” comes from “ghetor” or “ghet” (soft “gh”) which means “slag” in Venetian.  The Jewish merchants from Germany who moved to Venice ended up in an area with a forge/foundry.  The German Jews couldn’t say “ghetto” (soft “gh”), so it became “ghetto” (hard “gh”). This is one of the claimed etymologies of the word “ghetto” (the other is from Italian “borghetto,” which is a dimunitive of “borgo” (borough).  The first Jewish ghetto was in Venice.

Here’s a shot of Rosemary, Gary, Suzy, and Ethan inside the boat in the rain:

Rosemary, Gary, Suzy, and Ethan in our rainy boat tour

After the tour, we got off the boat in the rain and basically ran back to the condo.  Just as we got back, the rain stopped (of course).  It was about 7:00 pm at this point and we were trying to figure out what to do for dinner.  We initially thought we could just get take out from one of the nearby restaurants since no one wanted to go back out for fear it would rain again.  We checked at a couple of nearby restaurants, but it turns out Venetian restaurants don’t do take out.  Who knew?!?  We then considered just cooking in the condo, since the kitchen had the requisite pots, pans, and utensils.  However, by the time we decided to go this route, the nearby supermarket closed (15 minutes early, of course), so we ended up buying pizza for dinner as well.  Here’s a photo of Brent and Steve standing in a campo while we waited for our pizza:

Brent and Steve in a campo watching Ethan run around while we waited for our pizza

Brent, Steve, Ethan and I, while waiting for the pizza, also stopped at a church turned museum (pretty common in Venice; a lot of the churches are now museums) exploring the history of the violin and of Vivaldi.  It was a little awkward because it talked about Vivaldi, but all the exhibits were musical instruments and Vivaldi was a composer, not a maker of music instruments.  Regardless, it was cute little free museum that occupied our time while we waited for our pizza.  Oh, and I did learn that Vivaldi was a priest who was reprimanded by the Catholic Church for his fixation on music and the theater.  That was interesting.

That pretty much wrapped up our first full day in Venice.

Most of this day was spent traveling from Paris to Venice, Italy.  We spent the morning packing and cleaning the condo and had everything ready by the gate at 10:00, when a van from the same service that dropped us off was supposed to pick us up.  We had a little scare as the van to take us to the Orly airport was about 15 minutes late showing up.  Steve was taking a bus from his apartment, so we didn’t have him to help us if our van didn’t show.  We were just beginning to think of alternative arrangements when he showed up.  Other than a little anxiety, we made it to the airport fine.

We ate lunch in the airport and Ethan and Toren played together for a while.  Our carrier was Easyjet, which is a budget carrier.  As a budget carrier, seats are on a first-come, first-serve basis, so as soon as our plane landed, there was a swarm of people to the gate.  Luckily, because we have kids, we were allowed to board before everyone else.  That policy isn’t very popular based on the glares we got when boarding.  Those who are unhappy with the policy are welcome to try to entertain Toren on a flight!  ;)

Regardless, between the nine of us we got three rows and Toren even got his own seat (he wasn’t supposed to, but no one wanted to sit next to us, so he did):

Toren buckling his seatbelt

The flight was generally uneventful until we started our descent into Venice.  In front of Debi, Toren, and I was a French family.  The mother was by the window, the father was in the aisle seat, and a child around 5 or 6 was in the middle seat. They also had a lap child, probably a little younger than Toren.  They were quiet during the flight, quiet enough that I hadn’t noticed them.  But as the plane started to descend, the son vomited – EVERYWHERE!  It literally was projectile vomit onto the seats in front of them (the people in those seats had to have gotten covered with vomit).  The father yelled, “Merde!” and hit the sit in front of him (that was now covered with vomit) then hit the kid, who was so stunned he just sat there. Neither Debi nor Toren got any on them, but one drop of the vomit backsplashed onto my nose.   Ick!  Anyone, we just felt sorry for them and started handing them napkins and wipes to clean up.  The smell also started wafting back towards us.  It wasn’t pleasant.  But, having a kid of our own, one who has thrown up before (but never on flights, thank goodness; though he did have diarrhea on one), we just felt bad for them.  The mother responded much more appropriately than the father and jumped into action, cleaning everyone up.  She even had a spare shirt for the kid, whose shirt was covered.  I think the reason the dad was so upset is because the son was holding a barf bag right in front of him but missed it almost completely.  Still, the response was inappropriate.  Anyway… Here’s a shot of Venice from the air as we came in for our landing:

Venice from the air; photo by Brent

Once we picked up our luggage, Rosemary had, once again, arranged our transport.  Just before we left for our trip I was speaking with a colleague of mine who recommended that we take a water taxi into Venice rather than the standard bus, as the bus drops you off in an industrial area that is not at all attractive while the water taxi takes you right up the Grand Canal, which is really how everyone should enter Venice.  I mentioned this to Rosemary while in Paris and she said it sounded great, but that she had already arranged transport and wasn’t sure what it was.  Turns out, it was a water taxi up the Grand Canal.  And, it was very nice.  Brent filmed some of the ride and we took a bunch of pictures, but I’m just going to post one which shows some of the canal and our boat:

heading up the Grand Canal in our water taxi

The weather was great and the ride was marvelous.  This is definitely the way to arrive in Venice.

The water taxi dropped us off at Traghetto San Samuele (which is a stop on the water taxi route) where we were to be met by the manager of the condo who would walk us to the condo and get us settled.  However, we got there about an hour early.  So, we had an hour to burn before we could get settled in our condo.  It was a little on the hot side and we didn’t have any water with us for Toren or Ethan, so we went exploring the streets and alleys of Venice.  It would be super easy to get lost there, but eventually we found a supermarket with water that was right next to a gelataria (ice cream shop).  We bought some water and gelato and headed back to San Samuele where the parents were waiting with the luggage.  The condo manager showed up just after we did and walked us to our condo, which was actually not far at all from San Samuele (here’s our condo marked on a map).  This condo was even nicer than the last, though it did have electricity problems.  Basically, if you ran all of the air conditioning units at the same time (there were three of them) and anything else, it would trip the breaker.  Otherwise, it was great.  And it was very close to the market and gelateria we found earlier and a nice square (called campos in Venetian; Campo Francesco Morosini was the name of it) with a number of restaurants.

Oh, and the gelato.  Wow!  The gelato in Venice is amazing.  They have unique flavors, which are nice, but some of the simplest ones were just remarkable good.  My favorites were pistachio and coconut, but lemon was also very, very good.  We probably spent almost as much on gelato in Venice as we did on actual food!

Once we got settled we went out for dinner in the Campo, eating right in the square.  This was really nice because the kids could play in the campo while we ate.  Without a high chair, and given all the distractions, Toren’s attention span while eating was about 1 minute.  So, we ate in shifts, one of us eating while the other watched Toren.  Here’s some footage of Toren chasing birds in Campo Francesco Morosini while everyone was eating:

Also, I hate to admit it, but I was not at all impressed with the food in Venice, excepting the gelato, of course.  The pasta I had the first night (a seafood pasta) wasn’t very good.  I had pizza a couple of times, and it wasn’t particularly amazing either.  Oh, and you HAVE to buy bottled water in Italy at ridiculous prices.  While Italy is a lot cheaper than Paris, the fact that you couldn’t just get tap water was very annoying.  We pretty quickly started sneaking bottles of water into restaurants to top off our glasses and would buy just one bottle of water (usually at 3 or 4 euros) for the whole table.  We ate until about 8:15, which was 15 minutes after the market closed (though this market had a very annoying tendency of closing 10 to 15 minutes early every night we wanted to buy something).  Ethan usually wants milk at night, so Debi, Steve, and I went on a late night hunt for milk for Ethan, but to no avail (Toren went to bed early, so we left him at the condo with Rosemary to watch him).  FYI, there is no milk to be found in Venice after 8:00 pm.  Our hunt ended around 9:30, after which we all went to bed.

Our excess from the night before had its toll – we didn’t leave the condo this day until about 1:00 pm.  The kids and almost everyone else slept in late (I don’t sleep much, especially on trips, but even I slept in until about 9 am).  With our ambitions significantly reduced for our last day in Paris (the catacombs and the Musee d’Orsay will have to wait until next time), we opted for the things Rosemary really, really wanted to do: a boat tour on The Seine, completing the double-decker bus tour, and shopping near the Paris Opera.  We took the Metro to the station nearest Port de la Conference, Pont d L’Alma, which is where Bateaux Mouches boat tours is located.  It’s an hour boat tour up and down The Seine that passes most of the major sites (you can see the route here).  Toren was excited to see what he could see:

Toren ready to see the sights

He was so excited he nearly climbed right off the boat:

Toren getting a close up view of the sights

The boat tour does offer nice views of most of the sights, but also has nice views of The Seine and its many bridges:

going under one of the many bridges over The Seine

One of the things we particularly wanted to see was more of Notre Dame, which most of us saw the first day, but Debi did not. Here’s a shot from The Seine:

Notre Dame from The Seine

a photo of Notre Dame from the other direction; these are the bell towers

this one shows the main tower and the flying buttresses

The tour also passes the Eiffel Tower, offering very nice views of the Tower and the surrounding area from The Seine:

the Eiffel Tower from The Seine

Toren’s enthusiasm waned during the course of the boat tour:

Toren's thought in this photo, "Huh, that's all Paris has to offer?"

by the end of the boat tour, Toren he'd seen enough

After the boat tour, we walked back to the Champs-Élysées to the exact same place we had lunch the day before as everyone liked it.  We basically had the same thing and let the kids play again.  We met a couple from Quebec who had a kid about Toren’s age who was playing on the grass as well and chatted with them while the kids played.

After lunch, we got back on the “hop-on hop-off” bus and stayed on the bus for the course of the route, ending at the Paris Opera.  The bus tour is nice because it passes most of the main sights as well, offering better views in some cases.  Here’s a great view of The Seine from the bus:

The Seine from the bus

We also had an even better view of Notre Dame from the bus:

Notre Dame from the bus

Here’s a shot of Gary and Rosemary on the bus:

Gary and Rosemary on the bus in front of the Eiffel Tower

And finally, the Paris Opera:

the Paris Opera from the bus

A bit of fun trivia for you…  Toren can claim something I’m sure very few people can claim having done at the Paris Opera.  We changed his poopy diaper on the front veranda.  Yep.  Right there.  How many other people can claim to have had their diaper changed on the front steps of the Paris Opera?  Yeah, that’s what I thought!  ;)

The Paris Opera is located in a prime shopping area.  So, we got off the bus at this point and split up to shop.  Suzy, Rosemary, Brent, and Ethan went shopping for clothes while the rest of us went shopping for various electronics (Gary needed hearing aid batteries and I needed a new power converter as mine stopped working; it inexplicably started working again a couple days later).  Debi also picked up a cheap sweater.

After we finished our shopping, we got on the Metro to head back to the condo.  This led to one of the more exciting moments on the trip.  We weren’t on the Metro very long, but at one stop, a young girl and guy got on the subway in the middle of our group.  The were probably in their early 20s and seemed to otherwise blend in with everyone else.  The young girl was standing next to Rosemary facing Debi.  Just a few stops after they got on, this couple waited until the last second before the doors closed then quickly got off the subway.  Debi looked down and saw that Rosemary’s purse’s zipper was open.  She said, “Mom, I think they tried to steal your purse.”  Steve and I nearly jumped off the train in pursuit, but Rosemary quickly scanned the contents and nothing was missing.  Apparently stuff was packed quite tight into her purse, making it difficult for them to steal anything, but we’re pretty sure they tried.  So, we had a run-in with a pickpocket on the Paris subway.

After our stop on the Metro, we picked up some supplies in a grocery store and grabbed some sweets from a pâtisserie then returned to the condo.  Gary and Rosemary were tired and didn’t want to go back out.  Debi was also a little tired, but offered to stay in the condo and watch Toren and help Rosemary watch Ethan while the rest of us went out for dinner. Debi had the left over fallafel from the first night.

It took us a while to find a place to eat.  Part of the reason was we stopped at a creperie to get crepes for the next morning.  While there, Brent noticed the 5kg containers of Nutella (apparently Nutella is not French, but it may as well be as the French eat a lot of it), and started wondering if he could get one as a souvenir.  With a little urging from us, Steve asked the cashier at the restaurant if he could buy one of the containers.  The cashier gave him a funny look, then grabbed one, opened it to make sure it was empty, and then handed it to him.  So, Brent got his souvenir for free:

Brent with his Nutella souvenir

With crepes for the next morning in hand, we found a nice little cafe with sidewalk seating and had a nice dinner.  Wanting to try something new, I ordered a dish not knowing what it was.  Turns out it was raw beef with mozzarella on it.  I was a bit skeptical going into it, but it turned out to be pretty good, much better than I thought.  We stayed out chatting until about 11:00.  When we got back, we found Debi still up playing with Ethan and Toren, who were both still awake.  They were still adjusting to the time change, but went down pretty soon after that.  This was our last full day in Paris.