In this blog post you will find my observations of our three nights in the city of Venice. Things I saw, noticed, and thought that were memorable.

But first, the flight from the US to Marco Polo airport. It was a “shared” flight of Air France/Delta and, honestly, it was fine. We were in the back of the plane, I moved even more back to claim two open seats and kind of stretched out. I actually slept! Your girl never sleeps on planes. It was a 9pm flight so the kids were fried, too. They slept most of the flight. Regardless, even if you are in and out of sleep on a plane, you are not really rested. We landed at 11:30am local time. Pulled through till the evening so we could reset our internal clocks.

Water taxi from the airport. I was excited about the public water taxi but honestly, it was overrated. You could not really see anything unless you hung half of your body out of the boat window. Which I did not do because #notallowed. My husband and I were wondering how many tourist phones found their demise in the laguna…

What I liked about Venice

Dorsoduro and Cannaregio neighborhoods; those were farther from the center, much calmer and less touristy. I was up early one day and took a nice, long walk.

The architecture: it seemed that every building had some kind of detail: scallop pattern on windows, decor on doors or statues carved into walls.

The overall feeling of melancholy: it’s something about the canals that is magical yet sad. And we went in July! I wonder what it’s like in the fall and winter months, when it’s gets darker earlier.

What I disliked about Venice

It is PACKED and TOURISTY. I knew about the crowds and we did our best to avoid the major city arteries around St Mark’s square. People on the Internet suggested restaurants that are less touristy, away from the crowd. Early walks helped get to know the city and its garbage collectors.

It was hot but manageable. Yes, we were soaking wet on some days but we took showers and did laundry at the house.

It was EXPENSIVE. But I mean… 🤷‍♀️

How we spent our three days and three nights in Venice

Walking the streets.

Lots of ice cream. Pretty much every day.

Two museums: the Doge Palace (stunning, lots of history) and the Da Vinci museum (that man’s brain!) I did not know that Venice was a republic for about one thousand years and the head of the republic was the DOGE, pronounced “DOHJ” in English.

Eating. Lots of eating.

Just sitting in cafes in random squares. Running and playing in random squares. Finding cats in random squares.

One gondola ride. I HAD to do it and I wanted to do it in the evening so I can see the lights. The Grand Canal was spectacular but the side canals that are narrower were less illuminated therefore kind of unsettling and melancholy. The evening gondola ride lasted for about 35 minutes. The kids had questions for our gondolier- his name was Lorenzo and he has been working as a gondolier for 17 (!) years.

I will leave it here, friends.

From Venice, we took a train to Bolzano, a bus to Siusi, a cable car to Compatsch, and walked for 10 minutes to our accommodation on Alpe di Siusi. But that’s a blog post for another time!

Pic on the cover: St Mark’s winged lion- you see this symbol everywhere in Venice.