Saturday it was time for another day trip. This time a three and a half hour drive one way to Venice.
Chris and I have been to Venice plenty of times, even with the kids, but they were too small to remember it, so we figured they should see it again.
They usually like looking at things we take them to, but this time they were just blown away. Noah had the time of his life. He just couldn’t believe they used boats for cars, the streets were made of water, and even the police, emergency “car” and amazon used boats.
He was stunned by the fact that we were walking on ocean water without any solid ground beneath us – as a matter of fact, they learned from a video they watched before that it could be that fish were swimming under us right that second – and couldn’t believe in some places you could actually see the floor giving in to the ocean.
Even I am amazed anew every single time we come back. It is kind of a sight to behold. At this point, I also want to add that I have no idea why people always say Venice smells bad. I have been in the middle of summer heat, in spring, and now in late fall/early winter. I have never smelled anything bad and I am very, very sensitive to bad smells. Maybe I just always go on good days, but really I have no idea what people are talking about.
This time we did all the basics with the kids, checked out Rialto bridge, looked at the bent floor inside Basilica San Marco, walked around the Piazza San Marco, sneaked through all the tiny and narrow alleys, and checked out all the boats and gondolas – Noah couldn’t believe they had to bend under the bridges. And oh the bridges, so many bridges, it’s a constant walking up and walking down and the kids had an absolute blast running around all over the place and the bridges.
After a long drive home, we were tired and glad to be able to fall into our beds, but it was very much worth it. I hope the kids will remember it this time.
Sunday was made with more relaxing beach time. The weather report keeps saying there’s going to be all rain all day every day, but the sun doesn’t seem to care about the weather report and just keeps coming out giving us the most amazing beach days.
Afterward, we went back to the same Christmas market we went to last Friday, as they had the most amazing hot chocolate ever. They literally just melted pure chocolate, filled it in a cup, and put some whipped cream on top of it. I may or may not admit, that the first cup on Friday didn’t even make it to the car that was 2 minutes away, so we had to go back for more. Sadly this time when we came back the owner informed us that later last Friday the machine had broken and there was no more hot chocolate, which was quite a bummer. Thankfully they had plenty of other chocolaty goodness to choose from so we got over it pretty quickly. All in all a great little Christmas market with lots of handmade Christmas decorations, and yummy food, and not filled with too many people. Definitely going back on the “visit again” list.
The boss, the general, and the brains of the operation. Anya is the mom of this crazy group of misfits. When not traveling the world and teaching her kids to be decent human-beings, she likes to bake, sing, be goofy. Aside from all that she does for Five of a Kind, she is also a short term foster mother for infants in need.
She also enjoys unreasonably spicy foods and is searching for a hot sauce that is spicy enough and yet still has some kind of flavor to it.
