Time to start exploring!
The first destination was St. Marks square, famous for the Basilica, the Piazza, the Campanile, Doges Palace and of course the pigeons.
The kids were like energizer bunnies chasing the pigeons around and around and around. I taped a little of it.
Just around the corner, the kids checking out the Bridge of Sighs.
And then the heavens opened and the rain started coming down. Venice is actually quite charming in the rain since it's a water town...but it's less fun when you have to share your umbrella!
The rain was expected to last all day so we had planned to visit the Naval Museum. To get there we walked along the Riva degli Schiavoni promenade towards the Castello area of Venice.
Most of the museum was full of models of all different types of boats however the kids spent most of the time playing with this:
The museum was located right next to the Arsenal, the seat of Venice's naval power back in the day.
After the museum, we tried to find a place to eat but since we weren't in a touristy area anymore it was much harder to find something that we thought would work. At this point, we were all pretty soaked so we decided to just head back to the hotel. Instead of a sit-down lunch, we bought ourselves a loaf of special Italian Easter bread called Colomba. It tasted like an amazing panettone. It didn't take us long to scarf down the entire loaf!
Here are the kids waiting for the Vaparetto, the water bus in Venice. The "bus stop" was a floating dock.
We all took naps and then headed out for a nice dinner at Vino Vino, a restaurant just around the corner from the hotel. The food was good and the kids were well behaved (the magic of naps!). K loving the spaghetti and meatballs.
The kids decided they wanted gelato again, so we skipped dessert at the restaurant. The gelato place we went to the night before was closed so out searching we went. We wandered aimlessly for quite a while without any luck until we spotted a couple with cones in their hands. They were super helpful and practically walked us to the gelato place which happened to be on the Grand Canal, very close to Rialto Bridge. Luckily by this time it had stopped raining so with our cones we walked across the bridge.
Heading back towards the hotel we thought it would be nice to check out St. Marks' square at night. Little did we know that the loud bull-horn sound we heard was the warning of acqua alto, where the streets flood at high tide.
Long tables about 2-3 ft. off the ground were set up so that you could enter the square but still stay dry. Of course, some people with wellies were wading in the water. Acqua alta made getting back to the hotel a bit more interesting, since some of the streets we wanted to take were flooded, but we managed. Overall an enjoyable, albeit wet, day.
Very wet! I guess I was lucky when I went in April (this is 10 yrs ago though). I stayed a whole week with no rain!
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