Venice, Italy

We arrived to Venice by car in the afternoon, they have a massive parking garage on its own little island where we parked the car for the weekend. Ten minutes after parking our car we were on a vaporetto (water bus) to our hotel, where we got situated into Pensione Guerrato-an 800 year old building with charming rooms and not so good WiFi.  Bode liked the bed very much.

The location of the hotel was perfect, two minutes off Venic's most popular bridge: Ponte di Rialto. From the top of the bridge there are fantastic views.  It's a great place to watch gondolas, vaporettos, and boats travel up and down the Grand Canal.  We went early in the morning so that we didn't have to share the space with lots of tourists and travelers.

Hello Venice, you beautiful city you! 

We had a pretty laidback itinerary-exploring the things we wanted to with no time crunch, just the right type of trip I would say! Every turn down every street has a beautiful building and we learned that sometimes the wrong turn will land you right in the water.  

 Ah my boys

Jordan did a great job scouting out a breakfast spot that we enjoyed so much we ate there every morning.  You know its a good place when the barista knows everyone by name, has their drink memorized, and customers are "charged" but never billed.   I'm not entirely sure of all pastries we got we pointed to what we wanted.  We did have quite a few "festive crema sfoglia mezzo" and for sipping they make some great hot chocolate.  If you want to eat like a local try your morning ritual at Pasticceria Rizzardini.  

Bode's head also makes a great crumb saver

Part of what makes Venice such a special place is putting down the map to just wander-forgetting the big, popular sites for a a while and just walk the canals.  It seems like the main city of Venice is small enough that you can walk it in a few hours.  One of my favorite things was just exploring the canals and relaxing in the small squares...

Guaranteed you'll find yourself window shopping for carnival masks

While we didn't go to the Venetian carnival (although we went to one in Cologne...we'll save that story for another day) we stood on the carnival grounds in Piazza San Marco to feed the pigeons. 

Our first stop in St. Mark's Square was a visit to the Doge's Palace.  For centuries the building was once the residence of the duke, the seat of the government, and the Palace of Justice.  The grand staircase welcomes visitors with oversized statues of Mars and Neptune. 

The architecture reminds me of when we went to the Loire Valley and saw Chateau de Chambord. 

The golden staircase

Telling secrets through the slot they used to pass notes through.  

Some seriously impressive ceiling work going on here.  The picture below is of the great hall the Great Council would convene. It has an incredibly gilded ceiling with panels depicting the glories of the Venetian Republic, and the walls are painted with portraits of the Doges.  If you make a visit, make sure to take note of the "missing Doge" who was omitted for trying to raise a coup and was beheaded.  

Our next visit was to St. Mark's Basilica to see its lavish and amazing golden mosaics and colored marble. 

The highlight of the church is definitely the Golden Altarpiece and worth the few extra euros to see. It gives you the easiest way outside of Istanbul to see the loot of the Byzantine Empire.  The magnificent 500 A.D. altarpiece is made of 250 blue-backed enables with religious scenes, all set in a gold frame and stuffed with 15 hefty rubies, 300 emralds, 1,5000 pearls and assorted sapphires, amethysts and topaz.  No photos allowed so here is Google's finest:

When you realize you're hungry and need a break from sight-seeing and window-shopping we found just the place to have a great lunch.  Where we went was authentic Italian, and you'll avoid the tourist maitre d's trying to lure you into an overpriced subpar meal.  Lunch at Tuttinpiedi was so good that we went two days in a row.  The little hole in the wall makes such good homemade pasta for around 7-8 euro, and it has great flavor.  Grab n' go, find a nice spot in a square and enjoy!  Here's what we recommend:

Nero di Seppia // Cuttlefish in Black Sauce

Amatriciana di Gamberoni Affumicati // Smoked Prawns and Spicy Tomato Sauce (AMAZING!)

Pesto alle Genovese // Pesto with String Beans 

Ragu alla Bolognese // Beef Ragu

Jordan was super happy about our selection 

 ...and I can't stop loving on this little boy!

We went on a nice tour through the Jewish Ghetto, starting at the Jewish Museum. In the 1500's the Jews of Venice were force to move to this part of town which was the abandoned site of an iron foundry.  The word "ghetto" was soon used throughout Europe for the neighborhoods of isolated minority groups, but it originated in Venice: geto the old Venetian dialect for foundry.

We went inside all the five synagogues remaining in the Ghetto.  The synagogues were built in a raised position and endowed with light.  The synagogues were not separate buildings, they had to be build inside preexisting structures and reached through private homes because they were limited on space.  Some of them are hard to detect from the outside, would you ever think there was a synagogue inside here?

...and a beautiful one at that!

After re-grouping before dinner we stopped at the Frari Church to see a beautiful masterpiece.  It features the work of three great Renaissance masters: Donatello, Giovanni Bellini and Titian. 

This piece of art is seriously amazing Bellini's Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels has some crazy realism, pristine clarity, rich colors and believable depth. 

We grabbed dinner outside of the tourist part of Venice at Pizza Al Volo.  They had some pretty good pizza if I could say so myself!

Probably the highlight of our evening meals was of course the Gelato.  We loved Gelatoteca Suso, which had an amazing flavor: MANET.  It was a dark chocolate with pistachio cream and sea salt.  We loved it and went there every night for a fix!

Hello deliciousness!

I think it was pretty safe to say that Bode liked it too!

Unfortunately we weren't able to go on a gondola ride through the canals because of the weather...but as we were leaving the sun started to roll in for just a few minutes and we were able to enjoy the last little bit of Venice before heading home.  Quite spectacular if you ask me!

Another great adventure awaits us!