Happy 30th Birthday - Venice!

For my 30th birthday, Sean decided he was going to take me to Venice to celebrate my getting old (I found a grey hair the other day...).  Just the two of us.  I love my little boy, but the idea of trying to keep him from diving into canals for three days just didn't seem to make for a fun vacation.  Just the opposite in fact!  We are grateful that we have wonderful people in our lives whom we can trust to care for our son for a few days.  

So we packed our bags, tiptoed out at five o'clock in the morning and got on a plane bound for Venice! (via Rome).  Sure, it was raining, but hey, what can you do? We could only hope that it was not raining in our destination!

We arrived in Venice, took a bus to the island, and then took the vaporetto (water bus) to our stop.  We got off at the Rialto Bridge, the oldest bridge in Venice, and walked to our hotel.. .and didn't find it, asked people for directions, and didn't find it, until FINALLY we did find it - yay! It was down this dark alleyway :)

We had a pretty nice room with the Venetian wallpaper, more like wall-cloth than paper, and Venetian lamps.  It was very cozy, and was perfect for our needs.  Plus, it was in a GREAT location.  Five minutes from Rialto Bridge and five minutes from St. Mark's or San Marco's square.  Two of the main attractions as well as two main vaporetto stops.

Once we dropped off our luggage, we went out to explore.  We read that the best thing you can do in Venice is go out and get lost.  So we did just that.  We went out, walked around the streets and explored Venice without knowing where we were going...well, sort of.  Let's just say Sean had a very hard time letting go and not looking at a map to see where he was, haha.  Must be a control thing ;)

The Grand Canal

The charming streets of Venice

Oh, the gondoliers :) 

Sean and Shauna standing in front of a canal... cause there were so few of them ;)

A few of the churches throughout the city

Rialto Bridge

More pictures of the Grand Canal

The Grand Canal on the way to San Marco's Square

 

Protest on the canal - "No more cruises!  You are ruining the waters!"

Pretty pink lamps :)

 

That evening, we ate at the restaurant to the left of Rialto Bridge (teal awning) Great view!

Sean at the restaurant - It was raining, but we could still eat outside because they had umbrellas and outdoor heaters!  Yay!

Our walk home in the evening - something we would not have been able to do if Asher were with us!  We would have been back at the apartment with him in bed by now :)

San Marco's Square at night

  

In the morning, we woke up to rain.  Lots and lots of rain.  We decided we would do the indoor activities, and hope the rain lets up.  Off we went to San Marco's Square where Doge's Palace and St. Mark's Basilica are located.

View of St. Mark's Basilica as we were headed into the square from the side streets

These two are where the Basilica and the Palace connect (above and below)

While in Venice, we saw lots of funny things, but while Standing in line for the Palace, we saw this fantastic haircut  :) Haircut for men who want long hair, but don't want to deal with it getting in their face, and who want their hair to always be in a ponytail without actually having to put it up.  Yes!  This is the haircut for you! (and other random picture of Sean having a stare down with this creepy, zombie looking ancient warrior bust.)

Inside Doge's Palace.  This is where the elected head of Venice lived, as well as where all the governmental business was conducted.

 

Statues of Neptune and Mars (I looked it up :))

 These next pictures are of our favorite room.  Fortunately, we took pictures when we first walked in, because we were then promptly told we were not allowed to take pictures in the Palace.  Oops!  There weren't any signs in this room.  Just in the one before it...

Beautiful chandelier

Albania in the 1600s (Illegally obtained photo - I didn't use my flash though!)

Amazing ceilings!  The picture to the left is of a ceiling in a hallway - perfectly legal to take the picture.  The one on the right...I "accidentally" took while the camera was casually swinging from my hand...(I'm amazed I actually got a somewhat decent picture!)

Sweet looking gun the in prison section of the palace

Bridge of Sighs - Named so because the prisoners would see their last view of breath-taking Venice before they were locked away FOREVER!.  It connected the prison to the palace.  

Then onto San Marco's Bascila 

(this picture was taken the next day when the weather was better)

We got inside, up the stairs, and the lights were on, so we got a picture of the place and then the lights turned off.  Lucky me!

View from the balcony

One of our two pictures "us" pictures :)

After touring the Basilica and Doge's Palace, the weather was starting to let up.  We decided to go to Murano island next and see the famous glass blowing and handiwork....  So we hopped on the ferry, and made our way there. Some shots on the way...

Murano Island

When we got there, we got off on the first stop and were herded into a glass blowing factory to see a demonstration.  I love watching people work with glass.  I think it is fascinating.  Unfortaunately, we were the last people to go in, and didn't have a place to stand.  When we tried to stand in the area where they sell the glass, we were yelled at and told we had to stand with the other people...which was already full... this obviously did not put Murano in a good light for us.  We left, walked around a little bit, and saw the hundreds of shops that sell everything glass, and then turned around and went back.  Sorry Murano, you did not win us over!

Back to Venice, and their canals...

This was our favorite church.  San Maria della Salute.  In most of the other churches, here and in Paris, the paintings inside were very dark and gruesome.  They showed more of the natural man, and less of the divine, loving qualities of religion.  In this church, the contrast was extreme.  There were no gruesome pictures, but beautiful, serene, peaceful, spiritual pictures.  It was a very nice change. 

Sean's favorite house below- It's a bit rough around the edges, in need of a make over, but it's character still shines through (sound like anyone we know? [for those that don't get it, I am comparing the house to Sean.]).  I liked the ones with the lilac in their private gardens (above)

Please make sure to compare the size of the cruise ship to the size of the buildings right next to it... Those buildings were not small!  Cruise ships really are cities on water.  Crazy!

Our 50th time walking through San Marco's Square... our hotel was right next to it.  Great location!  Only this time we got a show! ;)

  

That evening we discovered that there is a Hard Rock Cafe in Venice.  Because we haven't had a good hamburger in months, we decided it needed to happen.  And happen it did!!  Holy cow they have big burgers!  Neither Sean or I could finish our burger - that's how big they were!  This is the facebook post I made about our experience:

"Hard Rock Cafe, I'm sorry for how under appreciated you have been in my life. It wasn't until tonight in Venice that I've realized how amazing you are. Sure, I paid 16€ for one of your burgers, and only ate about 4€ worth. But that's okay, because you have fountain soda. And you have ice that wouldn't make you sick. And not only that, you have unlimited free refills. Free refills. (It's been awhile) Hallelujah Hard Rock Cafe. You've earned yourself a groupie today."

Thank you Hard Rock Cafe!

On our last day, the weather was AMAZING!  Too bad it wasn't like this for the rest of the trip, or I might have relocated to Venice... That's how beautiful and overall nice it is.

Us on Rialto Bridge

Another picturesque canal

 

We finished our shopping the last day too...the mask on the right is the one I want.  Lucky for us, one of the famous Venetian mask makers has a factory in Albania.  So instead of paying ridiculous prices in Venice, we can drive a couple hours and get one for half the price in Albania.  Deal!  I'm going to find one that looks like the one on the right  :)

More canal shots :)  You can never get enough of those, haha

We weren't planning on going on a gondola ride... pretty expensive (100 Euros for 20 minutes expensive), and we didn't feel it was necessary to do it.  Then our friends who were in Venice the week before emailed and told us how we had to go on a gondola ride.  Even though I didn't say anything about it other than mentioning his comment, and still was not interested, Sean must have thought that Iwould change my mind about the ride. He said this to me, "How about instead of going on a gondola ride, we buy the mask that you fell in love with for Asher but thought was too expensive?"  Without a moments hesitation I said "Deal."  Thanks, Jay, for getting me my mask, hahahaha ;)

There was a lady who made masks out of Venetian fabric instead of the other typical masks we saw.  She was the only one who did this and I fell in love with them!  When I saw this one, I knew it was for Asher.  There were other animals, but I liked this one the best.  There was another fox with better fabrics, but these were more "boy" colors, so since it was for Asher, I went with this one.  Again, Thank you Jay!

After shopping, we went up into the Campanile Tower to see the panoramic views of Venice, and it was beautiful.

Saw this binkie while waiting in line.  It's on top of this high fence...wasn't sure what to make of it, other than coming to the conclusion that a baby was trying to escape his parents and had to leave a man behind in order to successfully get away...  

Just a gondolier, sitting by a canal :) 

On our way to the island of Burano

Burano is by far one of our favorite places in (around) Venice.  Unfortunately, we took the longest route to get there (1h 45m - should have taken about an hour), and were cutting it close to the time we had to leave to catch our flight.  Sean may or may not have been about to have a heart attack on our way to Burano.  He always stresses out on the day we go home from trips.  He thinks we are going to get lost, or break down, or do things like take the longest way possible to get to some site and miss our flight, or something....  :)  Once we arrived and checked the schedule to make sure we could catch our flight, we enjoyed the the long 25-30 minutes we had to explore the island... hahaha  But we were sooo happy we got even that amount of time, little as it was.  What an incredibly gorgeous little town!!  Forget Murano, blah, go straight to Burano!!

Accordionist serenading a pigeon... if only Asher were here to chase after him 

Had I actually had enough time to think about it, I would have taken way more pictures of these beautiful windows.  But I'm glad I got at least some pictures of them.

  

We caught our ferry, and made it back in the right amount of time.  Sigh of relief from Sean - Eye roll from me - Of course everything is going to work out, duh!  (until the time it doesn't, and then who's going to be eating their words, hahahaha) Our personalities come out a lot when we travel :)  Sean the pessimistic (he would say "realistic"), glass half empty kind of guy, and then me, the optimistic, glass half full kind of girl!  

Then it was back to Albania... there may have been a tear shed on our way to the airport...or two :)  

We love you Venice!

This is the most recent bridge built across the Grand Canal, right by the bus station

The road/bridge across the water from the mainland Venice to the island.

Bye, Bye Venice!! Oh how we will miss you!

(So happy we got to see this on our way out)

You can see Murano island on the far left, and the Grand Canal snaking its way through the middle of the island, like a sideways, backward "S" and the other big waterway where the cruise ship is coming on through.