Venice: The Agony and the Ecstasy / Rome

I had high hopes for our one full day in Venice, which should have been tempered by the fact that the weather prediction was 100% chance of rain for the entire day.  I’ll break the suspense of how the day went right away by giving you the subtitle of our day: On How Chloe’s Underwear Gets Left in Venice.  And if you’re in a judgmental mood, please read this on another day.  Because there are some less-than-pretty details.

 We caught the ferry over to Venice in the morning, and were greeted with really long lines at both the Doge’s Palace and the San Marcos cathedral--so they got skipped.  We had been told that “getting lost in Venice” was a great way to see it.  That mission was accomplished within about 2 minutes, so we had plenty of time to kill.  While we were wondering what to do, Chloe gave us a clear direction of where to go:

 No, this wasn’t a puddle she sat in.  Our sweet 3-year-old has only had a handful of accidents since she got potty trained, and she saved one of them for Venice.  So, our first order of business was to find a children’s clothing store.  If I wanted a mask or pizza, I would have fifty choices--but not so much on kid’s clothes.  

I have a husband who is fantastic at asking where things are.  I, on the other hand, tend to just start walking faster if I think I’m lost (that way I can find out sooner if I know where I’m going or if I’m lost).  Luckily, Ryan’s way won out and he asked the owner of one of the mask stores where we could find what we needed and she pointed out the way (“take a left after the bridge”).  It took us a couple of tries, but we found said bridge, crossed it, and turned left.

Our first store that had potential was a Disney store.  Our options were Tinkerbell pajamas or a princess dress.  So we passed on that, and were grateful to see this:

I haven’t shopped in Benetton since I was in high school, but I will forever be in their debt for a new pair of gray stretch pants.  I changed Chloe’s clothes in the store and put her wet clothes into the shopping bag and on we went.

We had some other adventures riding boats and looking for a lost umbrella.  Mostly we were trying to stay dry (a futile attempt) and making the best of things.  We got our first Italian pizza in a restaurant that allowed us to warm up, and then decided that we had done the best we could and headed back to the boat to go home.  

And during the ride home, I suddenly realized that the bag I had put Chloe’s wet underwear, pants, and socks in had been left behind somewhere.  I’m guessing it was in the restaurant, but it could have been on one of the many boats we rode.  Either way, it was a mortifying feeling.  Please join me in a moment of silence for the poor person who had the great misfortune of finding that bag.  I don’t know what they anticipated finding in a Benetton bag lying forgotten, but I’m sure it wasn’t what they found when they opened it up.  Oh, the joys of traveling with children.

Doing our best to make the most of a rainy day, on the Rialto Bridge

Mason and Katie in their masks

So, let us put that behind us and move on past the agony to the ecstasy.  We opted to spend Tuesday morning in Venice to make up for the cold, rainy day we had spent on Monday.  It was three hours of bliss, and all we did was wander around taking it all in.  There might have been some more pizza and gelato involved in that wandering.  Thank you Venice!

Day 2 in Venice--much better!

It was about a six-hour drive from Venice to Rome, with most of the route going through the Tuscany area.  So as far as drives go, it was a great one.  We got to the campground we’re staying in outside Rome, and within the first hour Ryan had almost electrocuted himself when he plugged in his power converter with more than one of the sets of prongs sticking out.  It blew out the power to our house, and Megan had the great satisfaction of whipping out the 3 tea-light candles she had brought along with her.  Luckily they got the power on quickly and it hadn’t destroyed the tablet he was plugging in.

This morning, we opted to tackle the Coloseum.  It involved a lot of walking to get through the Coloseum, Palantine Hill, and the Roman Forum.  I am sure we missed more than we saw, but there is only so much you can hope for when touring with four kids.  And then we made sure to finish with gelato.  I’ll just let the photos do the talking for this one.

Andrew getting a lift back to the metro

Every time Chloe said "I'm thirsty" there seemed to be a fountain nearby.  Not always an easily accessible fountain, though.

Riding the metro home.

And finishing off with gelato.

I am once again back to blogging in the dark while sitting in outdoor restaurants.  This one is outside a gelateria and instead of karaoke like there was in Paris, this one has a “baby disco” going on.  It’s kind of like the Wii dance games, but there are real people doing the actions and the kids are standing on the stage trying to follow the adult’s lead.  And there’s a very enthusiastic emcee on a microphone keeping everything lively. Fun times! My one consolation is that the weather is beautiful and Ryan is here with me.  A pretty pathetic date--but we’ll take it.