Venice and Murano

On our second day in Italy we decided to take the train and head to Venice.  Jackson was so excited about riding the train.  I think it was the highlight of the whole trip for him.

Here are the kids on the platform waiting for the train to arrive.

Jackson waiting, looking for the  train.  He could hardly stand it.

Waiting on the train can be tiresome!

We had a great ride on the train. I love taking the train. It is so relaxing to sit back and not have to worry about anything  other than getting off at the right station. 

This is one of the first views you see once you exit the train station.

The Rialto Bridge.

The first thing we decided to do was grab some lunch.  We stopped at a little restaurant and enjoyed some pizza.

The kids and Dan enjoying lunch. I am not sure why Dan was sent to the kids table!

After we had lunch we decided to get our tickets for the vaporetto.  As we were walking towards the ticket booth, we saw a big crowed of people and a line of police.  Instead of stopping we kept heading towards this area. 

Really why would we stop?  Who would not want to walk towards what we thought was a protest of some sorts.  We walked up to the Rialto Bridge to get a better view. 

After a few minutes we found out that there was a soccer match going on that day. They where bringing in the fans for the way game. Soccer fans are insane over here!  They take the game very seriously.  We were even mooned but Diane and I were to slow on the draw to get a picture of it.

Ella looking off the bridge as we where waiting for the soccer fans to leave.

I tried to so hard to get a picture from her point of view, but could not get the shot I wanted.

After the crazy soccer fans left, we got our tickets for the vaporetto, so we could head over the island of Murano.

 

I love this shot of Nicu, Ryan and Kyra waiting on the vaporetto to come.

One of the many gondolas.

The kids had a blast on the vaporetto.  Diane has most of the pictures of them on it. I will have to get them from her and add them later on.

I would like to take a minute for a side note.  In this post you are going to see a lot of pictures of everyday buildings. Why? Well, I want to remember what  the real Venice looks like.  Don't get me wrong, I did take pictures of all the big and cool stuff.  I know what that stuff looks like.  It is every day life I won't always remember.  It's what I want all of us to remember.

All of these photos were taking along one of the canals on our way to Murano.

 

This is the Isola di San Michele (also know as the island of the dead).

The island of Murano is where they make all of the glass. We were headed over that way in hopes to see glass blowers in action and to look at the glass.  There are hundreds of shops on Murano that sell the glass that is made on the island. It ranges from dirt cheap to expensive.  Luckily I found a few pieces in the in between range.

Jackson chasing birds.

I have to say Murano is more like I thought Venice would be. I won't sugar coat Venice, but it was really dirty and crowded (no big surprise there).

These photos were taken through out Murano.  Sadly most stores had 'no-photo' signs on the windows, so I don't have any pictures of the glass.

I loved this window. I took a bunch of pictures of it. I loved the shape and color of it.

After bit of shopping and having no luck finding anywhere to watch the glass blowers, we got ready to head back to Venice.  I know this sounds like it would be an easy thing to do, but this is the Sabroski family you are talking about.  Nothing is ever easy - EVER!  We decided to head back to Venice the same time everyone else on Murano decided to head back.  We were packed on the dock waiting to get on to the vaporetto.  It was like sardines in a can. We must have spent over an hour waiting to get on a boat.  Each boat that arrived was full and more people would just pile on!

By the time we made it to St. Mark's square it was twilight.  I did manage to get some very cool pictures, but not a lot of them. The sky was a beautiful color that night.

 

The 'Bridge of Sighs' was under construction.

Basilica di San Marco a Venezia (Saint Mark's Basilica)

Pictures of Piazza San Marco (Saint Mark's Square).

I have to say it was so peaceful and romantic in the square. Music filled the square. There were violin and piano players at a restaurant in the square.

After the square we decided it was time to head home.  The kids had been awesome all day. We did not want to press our luck. We headed back to the  vaporetto stop.  It was more crowded than the one we waited at on Murano.  So we decided to walk back the train station. I did not get any pictures on our walk.  We saw a ton of different things.  The fog even set in on Venice.  We ended up going down a number of alleys. It was so neat to see the city this way. Of course we even got lost, but we did find our way back to the train station.   It was a great trip and we are looking forward to going to Venice on our next trip.