Italy Trip: Venice

Adam was a missionary in Italy 15 years ago and had been several times since as a tour guide for his parents and later for his half-Italian grandmother who'd never visited. It was never top of our list of travel options because he'd already done it. But when we were discussing ideas with his old college buddy, John, who wanted to visit us with his wife, Krista, we decided it would be great for all of us to have Adam as our very own tour guide for our first time through Italy. It was the right choice. 

Our trip started when we all flew into Milan, rented cars, hopped in them, and sped to Venice. We originally planned to skip Venice, but changed our minds.

John and Krista flew in from Utah and powered through their jet-lag to make the drive. We all met up in Maestre, a town just outside of Venice.

 After some pizza for dinner (this was mine: egg, asparagus shavings, cheese, panchetta - doesn't look like much but it was one of my top 2 pizzas on the trip) we all crashed at the hotel. After a good night of sleep, John and Krista perked right up!

 Of course, I was immediately dying over all the architecture. Venice is a city in decay, which surprised me, but it shouldn't have. An old city built on water is subject to that kind of thing. In San Marco Square, however, the buildings are gleaming!

 There was a huge, old photograph of this pink and white building in our hotel and I immediately fell in love. In the picture, the square is flooded and people are holding their pants up and walking around. It's so great. I'm glad it wasn't flooded for us, though. I wouldn't have thought it was quite so enchanting.

 Adam and Noah in front of my favorite building. I really love this picture of them.

The whole crew, just getting warmed up for withstanding many days of my Over-documentation Syndrome.

Noah looking adorable in front of St. Mark's basilica.

Chasing, heckling and feeding the birds was the most exciting part of the day for the kids.

 This was early in the trip when the kids would still get in front of the camera.

 We were planning to skip the gondola because Adam remembered it being over-the-top expensive. But John found one for 80 euros for the six of us. Perfect! We went for it.

 Our gondolier was Lorenzo and it was so fun to hear Adam speak with him in Italian. Lorenzo is a 4th generation gondolier and his son is expected to be the 5th. If he chooses not to do it, they must transfer their license to another person. There are 450 gondolas allowed in the city. We all loved the gondola experience completely. What a place! There's just nothing like Venice.

We floated by Mozart's former residence when he was age 15. That was unexpected!

Our first gelato of the trip set the bar high. 

 Krista is 7 months pregnant but you can hardly tell.

Until she's double fisting on the gelato.

After lunch (also pretty good but I didn't take any pictures; I had a yummy seafood gumbo) and gelato, we left Venice. We rode the bus back to our cars in Maestre and headed to La Spezia to stay the night.