Florence

Saturday morning we grabbed some breakfast at a bakery (croissants of course) and then hauled ourselves and our luggage to the train station. It had gotten really crowded for the carnival (it was the last weekend for it) so it was quite the journey going through crowds and over bridges with all our things. The train station was very crowded and offered no seating so we had to stand and wait until our platform was displayed on the board. They put up the platform anywhere from 30 mins before to 5 mins before the train leaves- this we learned once we got to the station so we realized it wasn't worth it to get there super early, especially when we already had assigned seats. Maybe 10 mins before, our platform was announced and then it was more waiting for the train to get cleaned out before they let us on.  Tyler was happy with the seats I bought us. We had no one next to us and sat directly across from each other with a table in between. Our backpacks went above us and there was plenty of room under our seats for our other bags. I spent the ride drawing and listening to music, it was nice. The ride was a couple hours and they even offered us snacks and drinks. It was a nice experience. 

 

When we arrived in Florence it was raining and that made it feel like a long 15 minute walk with our baggage. I had put my backpack on my roller bag but the streets were so bumpy and full of puddles and most sidewalks are only a foot wide. My phone was getting so wet because I had it out to navigate and the wetness made it difficult to navigate. Then Google did not send us to the right place and we had to backtrack and then when we buzzed the door he didn't respond for awhile. Once buzzed in we had several narrow flights of stairs to navigate.  Not my favorite journey. At least the place was nice- everything was updated, there was shelving for organizing and the bed was really comfortable.  We took some to recuperate from the journey.

Once recovered we decided to go get some food. I made it an unofficial rule to eat at one nice Italian restaurant in every city so this was our nice restaurant, Ristorante II Morellino. We went specifically for the steak and it ended up being a great choice. Tyler got 1.2kg (the smallest amount you can order) of medium rare steak and would you belive he ate all of it? I did help some but that was mostly him. I got some pear filled ravioli that was quite amazing. It was a good, fancy, valentine's day meal for us. 

After our yummy food, we went looking for a grocery store to get some breakfast for the next day since we were going to have to be somewhere early and wouldn't have time to stop. Instead of ending up at a grocery store like we had planned, we ended up at a market. Lots of booths selling different food. We managed to find some bananas and croissants for the next day. We dropped those back off at our bnb and then headed off to our tour of the secret Michelangelo room in the Medici chapel. 

We arrived right in time for our tour and a guide ushered us and 3 others to the secret room. She told us how it was believed that Michelangelo was hiding in this room from the Medici family (under their own chapel!?) and had drawn on the walls to entertain himself. They discovered the room when looking for another exit for the chapel. The drawings were amazing and inspirational as I've been trying (and failing) at sketching lately. 

After we saw the drawings, we went up and explored the chapel. The chapels here make you feel so small. They are so over the top in everything. While there, Tyler discovered that reliquaries hold physical remains of a saint (usually bones) and was properly disgusted by it.

To end our day we grabbed some Gelato and pizza by the cathedral de Santa Maria del Fiore (yes in that order because we are grown ups and can eat dessert first). The cathedral looked amazing in contrast to the darkness  almost unreal.

The name of the place we got our Gelato at was Venchi and it was also a chocolate store. Tyler who is typically not a big chocolate person fell in love with their hazelnut chocolate. Nearby the gelato shop was a lego store so we had to stop in but I was disappointed to discover the Lego boxes were the same ones we have in America- the words were all in English. When leaving the shops we ran across that cool golden person. Tyler gave it a Euro and it bowed to us (not sure if it was a girl or boy).

Sunday we started our day with a visit to the Galleria dell'Accademia. Michelangelo is truly an amazing artist, the details on his giant David statue were amazing. I am an idiot and didn't realize this was the David from David and Goliath and it was cool to see the details of his sling. I'm just not sure I understand why David was killing Goliath without any clothes on ;). I think my second favorite part of the museum were the statues in the beginning that kind of showed Michelangelo's carving process. Michelangelo said that this job was to free the sculpture from the marble.

For Lunch we basically had a charcuterie board at La Prosciutteria Firenze. The meat was delicious, not all of the cheeses were my favorite. Really good overall though, everything is so fresh here and feels way less processed. 

After lunch we headed over to the Uffizi Gallery. We were early for our time slot. I learned that being early for your time slot is worthless. We waited in a pointless line until we realized we just needed to wait for them to announce our time slot and then line up. Then we waited for maybe 20 mins to get inside. They do security at every museum so that can slow things down. While in line we met a guy from Colorado who had come for the Olympics. He was 45 and his wife was having their first baby (she's 38) . Wild that I'm only 2 years older than her and I have 5 kids. Nice guy though.

The museum was a lot of slow waking and Tyler got tired a lot. Apparently he doesn't do good with slow walking. There was a ton of art to see there. Some magnificent and some not my jam. Lots of virgin Mary and Jesus pictures. Some of the pictures of Jesus were not very flattering so I started doing a sort of photo scavenger hunt for unusual paintings of Jesus. Regardless of the crazy pics, there is a lot of talented artists housed there. I particularly liked the Medusa picture.

After the Uffizi Gallery we took a rest and then went back out on a walk to see the sunset. We saw (and then walked on) the Ponte Vecchio Bridge (it is the only remaining bridge to have houses and shops on it). Then we walked towards the Piazzale Michelangelo so we could get a could view of Florence as the sun set. As we approached it, we saw it was just covered with people and figured our views from the street were good enough. Much too peopley for us. Also on our way back we thought it was pretty cool how shops closed up on the bridge. They look like a bunch of wooden boxes.

We ended our last day in Florence with pizza and Gelato, of course!

Venice

Tuesday was Steven's actual birthday. Unfortunately it was mostly a lame day for him. He had school in the morning and Archery in the evening but Tyler did take him out to lunch before we left to the airport. And I did buy him a tub of ice cream for the night because he said he did not want more cake. While they were out to lunch, I picked up Grams Hatch from the airport and filled her in with all the kids information. Once we got to the house, I showed her where to find things around the house. After that it was off to the airport for Tyler and I.

I was an anxious ball of nerves for the traveling but everything ended up going fairly smoothly. The first leg of the trip- to Amsterdam- was a little less than 8 hours. We managed to book comfort plus seats for just a little bit more money. Only a slight step up from economy but worth it- 3 extra inches of leg room and our own overhead bin. It was nice that we had no one next to us and we got pillows, and blankets. I, unfortunately, was unable to sleep despite taking sleeping pills. I played some games on my phone, watched a couple shows and then just closed my eyes and listened to a book. Despite not sleeping the flight didn't seem to drag too much and I only had to use the claustrophobic bathroom once (but man those doors can be challenging to open).

When we arrived in Amsterdam that was slightly stressful. We had about an hour before boarding to find our flight and reading the board to find our gate proved challenging. Tyler managed to figure it out and then we had a long walk and a long line through customs. Turns out that your first stop in Europe is in customs and we didn't have to do it again for Venice. The customs officer just asked where we were going, how long we'd be there and if we had anything to declare. Simple enough but of course he made me nervous. 

Our flight to Venice, we had to walk down and around to the back of the plane to load in, that was different. This flight was no comfort plus, we were all packed in like sardines. We stayed for quite awhile on the tarmac but thankfully once we finally got moving, it was a quick flight- less than 2 hours. 

When we got to Venice they had us go down to the tarmac again, loaded every passenger into one squished bus (where we overheard many michigan passengers talking about going to the curling competition at the Olympics) and then the bus drove us straight to baggage claim. I had to check in my personal item for this flight leg because they had smaller under seat storage and Tyler had decided to just check in his backpack. Baggage claim was slow. A first round of luggage that didn't include ours came and then after 15 or 20 mins ours finally came. After that it was really easy to grab a bus ticket (very cheap too), find our bus line and get to venice. It was not crowded at all- there were only a few other people on the bus. I was tired and a little nauseous though so not a great ride. 

And then we were in Venice! We pulled up maps and met our host at Campo Margherita Square. The walk was rough with many bridges but it made me grateful that I just had a large backpack and a Under seat roller (small so easier to carry on bridges). The square was empty and calm (and covered with confetti from the Carnival).

I messaged the host that we had arrived and only minutes later she was there and leading us to our airbnb. She was so nice and gave us lots of information and I loved how she added an 'a' sound to the end of almost every English word. Our bathroom had a window that opened up to the canals and also we had a hard time figuring out how to flush the toilet. The button is on the wall to the right of the toilet in the picture below.

Once she left we collapsed for a bit. We'd been traveling for about 12 hours and up for once 24 hours. I only let us lay down for an hour or study because I wanted to adjust to the time difference (6 hours ahead). Than I got up, freshened up and we headed out to explore. 

Everything is so beautiful to me in Venice. All the canals, the bridges, the architecture...We decided to head to the center of the a Carnival, San Marco Polo, but it is tricky to navigate Venice and we got off route several times. I started off saying that I didn't mind because then we could explore,  but the reality was I was tired and started to get crabby about walking more than necessary.

When we finally got to the carnival it was so cool to see people dressed up in their fancy costumes. Many of them were willing to stop and pose for photos (with or without you). I even got brave and asked a couple if I could take a picture with them. It was fun. At the San Marco piazza they had a stage with a show going on. A man was doing a but if magic (with playing cards) and an Olympic skit. It was dorky but the atmosphere was full of life. We also saw the outside of the basilica di San Marco which was beautiful. 

 

After wandering around he piazza I started to get extra tired, hungry and grumpy so we decided to head back and get some food.  We ended up getting some pizza near our bnb. It's interesting because here they just leave the cooked pizza out and then heat it up when you order it. I didn't love the pizza I got but I was happy to fill my stomach. We didn't stay up too much longer after eating, we were so exhausted from lack of sleep and jet lag.

After seeing the Basilica di San Marco from the outside, we decided we wanted to buy tickets to see the inside, so that's where we went Thursday morning. It was a beautiful but a bit of a bust. We got the basic ticket which essentially only got us into the main part of the chapel, which was really beautiful, but it didn't take long to see. There was a service going on which was cool, the acoustics in there are amazing. 

It was probably pretty good that it didn't take long because once again I was hungry. We had woken up late and had to rush to the basilica and hadn't had time for breakfast. So when we left the basilica we went looking for a pastry shop. We managed to stumble upon one and had one of many experiences of being a stupid American. We stood by the counter a little lost and unsure if we should sit down but eventually the lady gestured to us to sit and handed us menus. The menus just showed hot chocolate and coffee. The lady never came to our table and we saw someone else order at the counter and then sit so we decided to try that. I'm not still not sure if that was the right thing to do or if we should have just been patient but it worked. I ended up with a delicious vanilla hot chocolate- it was thick, almost pudding like- and a chocolate filled pastry. Tyler got a mint hot chocolate and did not like it, it was too bitter for him. 

The food and water (Agua naturale/ still/ no gas) was exactly what I needed and I felt much better equipped for the day. From there we headed to the Jewish Ghetto (on Cannaregio). We paid for a tour with a guide and it was really fascinating. He took us to 2 synagogues and went over the history of the word ghetto, how the island Cannaregio came to be, how the Jewish came to be on the island and lots of sad things. It was crazy to learn that in the 1500s the Jewish people had a curfew and had to be back to the ghetto by 7pm and had to wear yellow hats/ yellow patches to distinguish themselves. 

After learning the history and seeing their small garden, it was time to get some food. We ended up stopping at a random place and there was only one other customer there. The waiter (who was also maybe the owner?) was nice and helped us with ordering... kind of....I ended up getting dumpling like noodles instead of the spaghetti I wanted. I didn't love the texture of them. I also tried the pasta e fagoli soup and it was nothing like Olive Gardens. Really just beans and some flat noodles in a beef broth. Is it wrong that I like Olive Garden's soup better? Tyler really liked his food though. He got a meat sampler (thinly sliced meat) and a meat lasagna. 

After our late lunch, we took a siesta, and then we wondered back out to visit the shops some more and eat our first Gelato. I got a strawberry one with whip cream. The whip cream made it tricky to eat but it was so yummy. We spent our evening buying some fun masks for the kids and then grabbed a few things to munch from Conad (a small Italian grocery chain).

Friday we woke up, and got some Croissants from a pastry shop (mine had delicious vanilla pudding like stuff inside). Getting food always makes me anxious because ordering and paying seems so different at each place. After we ate, we were on a mission to find a gondolaier to take us out. One seemed to find us. He was setting up his boat and asked if we would like a ride on his limousine. He was a 5th generation gondolaier. He talked Tyler into the hour long tour which I thought was too expensive but ended up being worth it. He was a nice guy but had a cough, like Tyler. Tyler wanted to offer him cough drops but didn't want to be offensive. Our gondolaier told us facts as we went and he pointed out different sights. His English was good but sometimes we had to work a little to understand each other. It was foggy so he said we were on a mystery tour. At one point he took us out to the edge of the island and there were bigger boats and the water was a bit choppy and that made me nervous but we didn't die so worth it ;)

After our ride in a gondola we trekked to the other side of the island so we could go to a different island,  Burano. We were in Dorsoduro (by the Basilica Santa Maria della Salute) and had to go all the way to Cannaregio to get to the boat ferry. We honestly could've ferried from where we were to there but we were confused by everything and decided it was easier just to walk to the closer stop. The boat was crowded and we ended up having to stand for awhile until someone left at the first stop (Murano). Then I got to people watch (because we had weird front seats that faced everyone else) and that was fun. There was a lady wtih a tattoo on her leg that said "prada" and it showed perfectly through the hole in her jeans. Ha.

After getting to Burano I was hungry again so we stopped at a place and I had my first Cicchetti- basically a small bite of bread with various things on it- and I also got a croissant. I only got one cicchetti because I wasn't entirely sure what was on it and if I'd like it but it was so good. I wish I had gotten more. Then we spent the rest of our time on Burano shopping and seeing all the cute colorful homes. The legend is that they started doing all these colorful homes so the fishermen would be able to find their own house easily when they returned from fishing. They even have a kind of hoa forcing them to all have colorful homes. I love that and wish we had that in the states. Maybe I'll start my own neighborhood. Anyways, we wandered and I bought a few things(glass ornaments, a mini glass fish in a bowl, a scarf) and then we headed back to the ferry. 

The ferry was a bit confusing but we managed to figure it out, or so we thought. When we entered our stop, we were told the next ferry wouldn't be by for another hour and that we should go to the stop next to us because it was coming soon and going to Murano (an island a little closer to Venice). We got on that one and it turns out that right after Murano, it went to Venice so I don't know why it was any different than the other stop. 

After that fun, we walked back to the airbnb for a rest. Then we wandered back out to do some more shopping and get more Gelato. It's so cheap and delicious, we just can't help ourselves. 

We ended up going to the Libreria Acqua Alta. It was so busy but still neat. All the books are on shelves that float so when the water rises, you can still shop for books. There were some art books I was tempted to get but they all have their share of nudy pics which feels like I probably shouldn't bring in to our house full of kids. 

For dinner that night we both really wanted some protein, so we ended up walking to Atled Meat Lab.  They made us both a fresh pulled pork sandwich with an interesting version of fries  (kind of crescent shaped). We took it back to our bnb since there was no where to sit (all the shops and food places are so small here). It was so good, I swear it was better than anything I've eaten in America, but Tyler thinks I was just craving food from home and that it wasn't that spectacular. I disagree.