Tag Archives: Venice

The Long Way to Murano

murano
Murano

I’m using a photo from Flickr for Photo Friday today, much as I would love to be sharing the photos I took while we were in Venice When I wrote about navigating Venice by Vaporetto, I ended by alluding to our crapo-vapo day when I goofed so gloriously that my kids will probably bring it up in their wedding speeches.

It was a hot day, like a really, really hot day. We should have just found a shaded piazza and spent the day lounging, reading and eating gelato by the bucketful, but that would be contrary to my native “I exist, therefore I must be moving” style of traveling – and living, if the truth be told. Instead, I thought we should go out to Murano to see how glass-blowing is done Venetian-style. To see the glass, of course, but also to take advantage of the fact that since Murano is an island in the lagoon we’d have to take a boat out there and – so my twisted logic went – the breeze on the boat would be cooling.

Also, taking my kids to a glass furnace is is less crazy than it might sound since thanks to Dale Chiluly, glass-blowing features heavily in the Pacific Northwest art scene and my boys have seen all parts of the process through visits to the Tacoma Museum of Glass . What’s not to like? A huge furnace, monster steel rods, glowing blobs of molten glass – all things which any child would find fascinating.

So far so good. And then it wasn’t. You see, as Jamie from TravelSavvyMom pointed out in her comment on my vaporetto post, vaporetto stops are confusing. The main reason is, unlike buses or trains or other, more common forms of public transportation, vaporettos going opposite directions (e.g. #41 E and #41 W) stop at the same vaporetto stop. The bigger stops have two gangways – one each for passengers going in each direction. The smaller stops, on the other hand, have only one gangway and while the number on the boat is large and easy to read, the direction is not. So you’ve guessed it. Yes, on this steamingly hot day, I took my poor husband and children onto a vaporetto going the wrong direction on a circular route. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, except that this particular route circumnavigated the entire island (of Venice). To add insult to injury, vaporettos don’t have air-conditioning or much cross-flow of air within the passenger area. Man, was it hot!

Within one or two stops, the WanderDad and I figured out the mistake, but we opted to stay on the boat thinking that our children – who, at that point were sitting underneath a window and quietly reading their books – might not even notice. That was while we were passing along the quieter, more industrial side of Venice. Once we hit the busier parts of the city, things went downhill fast. People piled onto that boat like it was the last lifeboat on the Titanic and consequently, my children articulated their discomfort at the tops of their voices – there are times when I dream of a little British Isles reserve from them, but it’s been noticeably lacking so far so I’m not holding my breath. At home, I refer to CAM as my ‘pet troglodyte’ because he genuinely prefers to be in our dark, cool basement on a hot sunny day. He has no tolerance for heat, poor guy. He berated me from about San Marco all the way back to the stop where we had originally caught the vaporetto and then some. I kept passing the bottle of water and hoping for an end to come soon.

But just to show the resiliance of children: within moments of stepping off the boat onto the island of Murano, (penitential monstrous gelatos in hand) we came across a small, family-friendly glass shop. The display items were glued to the shelves – how cool is that? The ‘horrendous crossing’ was immediately pushed out of the boys’ minds as they ooh-ed and ahh-ed over cute and colorful glass. I was forgiven, but, as I said, I don’t think this mistake will ever be forgotten.

Side Note: If you’ve been reading this blog for a while now, you’ll have noticed that my kids having a good book to read has helped a lot on many of our travels. To share the titles which they’ve enjoyed, I’ve added an Amazon widget to this page. Check out the books. Seriously, I will only show books which are reader-approved by CAM and BigB

Subscribe to this blog using RSS, email or follow me on Twitter.

Share and Enjoy

Our First Wander In Venice

6 Replies

venice-map

The joys of depending on the Italian train system. We had planned to have a lazy Monday morning in Lucca relaxing after a busy (wedding-filled) weekend, possibly catching an afternoon train towards Venice. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the train station on Sunday afternoon to purchase tickets, we were told that there would be a one-day, province-wide train strike the following day and that if we wanted to get to Venice on Monday, we’d have to catch the 6:30am train. The following morning, for two kids who were still recovering from jet-lag, my boys were troupers as we woke them early and bundled them into a taxi to the train station.

Hence, we arrived in Venice late Monday afternoon, tired and just a little cranky. We found our apartment off Campo S. Angelo with little trouble, dumped our bags and headed out for our first wander around the city with no agenda other than to stretch our legs after a day on trains and to find something to eat. Small and quiet, S. Angelo is in the San Marco sestiere but slightly away from the main “tourist trail” which runs from Piazza San Marco to the Rialto bridge. We followed our noses rather than a map, generally heading south-west towards the famous piazza to try to get a first glimpse of the Basilica di San Marco in the pre-dinner quiet. Our walk led us through Campo San Stefano past some restaurants which were just arranging their outdoor seating. It’s funny to think that these squares are called campos because they were once fields – in a city which is now battling to stay above water.

After walking even for a short time through the narrow streets and bridges, when you first come upon Piazza San Marco you immediately feel humbled by the size and grandeur. Our luck was in: the square was practically empty, the restaurants not quite ready to start serving dinner, the pianos quiet and there were only pigeons crowding around the entrances to the (now-closed) Cathedral and Palazzo Di Doge. “Mom, look, it’s the golden lion” BigB called excitedly. With the Piazza practically to ourselves, we we were able to take plenty of posed photos of the boys with the famous cathedral in the background. Unfortunately, just a couple of days later, our camera was stolen, so I have no photos to share

For a visitor, Venice is a truly confusing city in which to orient oneself with mostly small cobbled streets, an unintelligible addressing system and, of course, canals. I had no idea that this was the case when we had set out earlier, The Rough Guide to Venice confidently in hand, sure that we’d easily find one of the recommended restaurants. Hah! After a fruitless attempt to find one or two of the suggested establishments, I conceded to the urgency of the “Mom, I’m hungry” cries and instead we returned to Campo San Stefano where we ate a decent, reasonably-priced meal at Ristorante San Stefano. As we relaxed over coffee after our meal, I studied the map in our guidebook, trying to commit the general layout of the city to memory. The boys were exploring the piazza – which is just the right size for enabling some independence, but not so large that they could disappear out of view. Although, when they came barreling back to us at top speed having ‘discovered’ a gelateria at the other end of the square, there was no way we could miss them.The Gelateria Paolin is one of the city’s oldest gelateria and is world-famous for it’s pistachio gelato. An excellent way to end to a busy day.

Related posts:
Navigating Venice By Vaporetto

Subscribe to this blog using RSS, email or follow me on Twitter.

Share and Enjoy

Navigating Venice by Vaporetto

3 Replies

Note from Wandermom: This past weekend I realized that I hadn’t written much about our time in Venice last June. Over the next week I’ll be writing about this – I hope you enjoy!

If you click on this image, a full-color PDF of the route map will be displayed

Ah Venice! The city of canals and gondolas. When we visited, I do think BigB was sure that we’d only travel by gondola while we were there. Unfortunately, gondolas are not really practical for a family of four – with backpacks – and the directions to our accommodation recommended taking a vaporetto to S’Angelo. But, just like any traveler first arriving in a new city, we weren’t quite sure how to navigate (excuse the pun) this novel form of public transportation. So we sat on the steps of the Venezia Santa Lucia train station enjoying our first gelato of the day watching the vaporettos puttering into their assigned docks, disgorging of passengers and loading up again. The kids were fascinated.

Single-journey vaporetto tickets are EU2 each. You can also buy tickets in half-day increments up to 72 hours or a 7-day pass. If you’re staying for longer than three days, you plan to use public transit and visit the many museums for which Venice is famous, a VENICE Card – which includes discounted admission to museums (and public restrooms!) is also available. If you arrive by train, there’s a ticket booth for ACTV tickets at the train station. There are children’s rates for the VENICE card but not for the multi-hour or multi-day ACTV tickets. You can buy tickets online at veniceconnected.com.

Our journey that day was painless and we hopped on and off the vapos like natives over the next few days. Until, perhaps a little too comfortable with our prowess as vapo-riders, our trip to Murano became, in BigB’s words “Mom’s biggest mistake of the whole trip”. You’ll have to come back to find out what happened

Subscribe to this blog using RSS, email or follow me on Twitter.

Share and Enjoy

monday dreaming of my camera

6 Replies

Well, not my camera exactly, the WanderDad’s camera. It was a Christmas gift from me to him, and it was the only camera we had with us on our trip to Italy. But it was stolen.

Casio ZX-100

There’s nothing particularly remarkable about this camera. It’s a simple point-and-shoot, takes good photos, and is easy for even me (the non-gadget-geek in our household) to use.

The camera was stolen in Venice in June and I’m still mad about it. We had just spent five days in the city, relaxing and wandering, and generally getting to know our temporary home. Our kids were settling into the travel routine and becoming proficient in ordering their own food, drinks and gelatos in Italian. We had taken a ton of photos. This is unusual for us, we’re very in-the-moment people who are much more likely to bask in the sun watching our kids explore a piazza – just enjoying watching them play – than to even think about taking the camera out of it’s bag.

Perhaps a year before our trip, BigB had read Carnival By Candlelight and so, he was truly excited to visit Venice. I do think he thought he would see a flying lion. When we got to Venice, he was disappointed by the hustle of the vaporettos and the distinct lack of costumed characters in masks and flowing cloaks.

With a little digital photography magic, the WanderDad took a photo of him with the lion from Basilica San Marco in the background, making it appear as if they were standing side-by-side. And so began our photo journey through Venice. The kids posed and preened in all kinds of places. We avoided much of the usual tourist paths through the city and instead wandered around the neighborhoods, exploring and photographing as we went.

And then, the day before we left, we ate an early dinner in a little pizzeria just off Campo San Angelo. So early the pizzeria was practically empty. When we were done eating and had paid, we gathered up our things and left – leaving the camera bag behind. We realized the mistake within 30 minutes and rushed back to the pizzeria – which was no busier than when we had left it. But the camera was gone. I could rant for a moment about the probability that the camera was taken by our waiter and how dishonest it was for him to plainly lie when we returned asking if he’d seen the camera, but I won’t.

Instead, I’d like to take a moment to praise the Found Cameras and Orphan Pictures blog. Matt Preprost, the owner of this website, posts photos from found cameras and memory cards weekly on this site. You can search for your lost camera or photos using the location in which it might have been found. There’s an interview with him on how he came up with this idea on YouTube. It’s a great use of technology and the internet. Yes, it is like having a giant lost-and-found board, but it’s also an admirable way to reunite people and memories.

My request to you ? Spread the word. We’re not likely to ever be reunited with our Venice photos (since they haven’t shown up as yet), but knowing about this service can only make it better and that, may one day, help you or someone you love.

This post is part of the Monday Dreaming series by MotherOfAllTrips.

WanderMom

Inspiration for where to travel with children

Tag Archives: Venice

The Long Way to Murano

Share and Enjoy

Our First Wander In Venice

Share and Enjoy

Navigating Venice by Vaporetto

Share and Enjoy

monday dreaming of my camera

Share and Enjoy