Venice

I'm not going to lie.  The moment I stepped off the train, the emotion I was feeling caught in my throat.  Right outside the station, is the Grand Canal.  There is no noise of cars, no sounds of honking.  All you hear is the sound of the water lapping against the stones, the sounds of boats motoring down the canal,and the voices of all the people.  You can smell the sea air on the wind.  Not a powerful salty smell like the ocean, more just a hint of salt.


My mom and I had traveled to Europe in 2001, only a few months after September 11.  We had an extra day before we had to go home, and we were in Milan.  Mom and I had discussed going to Venice, but like a fool I said No.  We ended up having a perfectly fine day in Milan, but I had always thought I'd come back.

Now, 15 years later, here I was, in Venice.  With entirely different people that I hadn't even known existed 15 years before.  I had felt the same thing when I was in London the second time.  And when I got to see the Duomo in Milan... again.

So many people don't get the chance to go to Europe once, and here I was, again.

I don't want to make it sound like a year in Europe is a completely magical thing. There have been some good things and some hard things.  Not having a support system to just get out for a night has been hard.  Not being able to speak Italian well has been very hard.  I had no idea how lonely it would feel.

But here we were in Venice.  It really is as beautiful as it looks.  The best part about arriving in Venice was the unadulterated joy on my son's face as he realized that the buses were boats.  I can't remember the last time I saw him so excited. Aaron and I had told him we were going to a city where there were no cars and all the streets were water. We have discovered that he does not do well with surprises.  He can get easily overwhelmed where as if you pre-warn him, he can at least get used to some of the idea (as much as he can being 4) and then he's not so overwhelmed by the things he didn't expect.

"Look!  The buses are boats!"

Ryan promptly decided we needed to go on a boat ride, no two boat rides!  One on a bus boat and then one on a regular boat.  And we should do that right now, despite the fact that we hadn't eaten lunch or checked into the hotel yet.  Aaron and I assured Ryan that we would indeed take a boat ride, but that we needed food first.  I had found a list of gluten free restaurants on line, and we headed through Venice's winding streets toward a place called La Zucca.

Little did I know that you need reservations for lunch on a Saturday at La Zucca.  While gluten free is not a foreign request here, it is not everywhere and after hearing that we needed a reservation at this place, I was concerned that we would continue to wander around the city to other restaurants and continue to be turned away.  We ended up eating at a little place across the canal called Al Ponte Del Megio.  Aaron had spaghetti with olio di peperoncino and I had tagliatella (which is like our linguini) with eggplant and dried tomatoes.  It was amazing.  Ryan had a peanut butter sandwich and some beautiful strawberries we bought from a fruit vendor in Venice.

After lunch, Ryan kept asking if we could go on the boat yet, and we assured him that after the hotel, we would indeed go on a bus boat.  I had hoped to go on a gondola, but it was 80€ for a 30 min tour! If we hadn't had the children who can barely sit still for 5 minutes, a gondola ride could possibly be the most perfect way to see the city.  However, when you have a 4 year old who gets excited every time a boat motors by and an 18 month old who would more likely jump over the side at the sight of a cat on shore than sit still for 30 minutes, a gondola ride did not seem like a good investment.


We finally found the hotel which turned out to be a quiet little place on the western side of Venice.  The room was very large and clean.  Ryan declared that it was a "good room".  And then proceeded to jump from bed to bed (after kindly removing his shoes).

We made our way back to the train station where we got on a "bus boat" and Ryan and I snagged the front seats.  Everything about the boat he loved.  He liked going fast, he liked it when the boat banged against the dock.  We held our breath under every tunnel and he loved it when I would let my breath out first.  At one point we "raced" a taxi boat and he was laughing and pointing and urging the bus boat to go faster.

He was only ready to get off when gelato was mentioned.  We disembarked near Piazza San Marco and were promptly swallowed by the throngs of tourists.   There were women in Carnevale dresses and masks.  Stalls full of trinkets and souvenirs.  I was surprised at how many people were there, even though it was a Saturday.  Emily woke up from her nap on the boat and wanted to walk.  Between not having to watch out for cars and the bridges and boats, it turned out that Venice was the perfect city for my kids.  It was difficult to find a gluten free gelateria, but we ended up walking all the way to a place called Gelato Fantasy who ended up having gluten free cones!  Ryan has decided he doesn't like cones, however, since last time he had one and he ended up getting more on his hands than in his mouth!  So he got a cup of chocolate (of course). Emily got very excited and shared my chocolate and Bailey's although she decided she would leave the Bailey's to me.  Aaron got peanut butter which is an incredibly rare flavor to find in Italy.

For dinner we were hoping to find gluten free pizza, but after fighting through the crowds, we found the restaurant to be closed for improvements.  While many restaurants seemed to offer a gluten free pasta option, and most of them served seafood and vegetable gluten free options, Ryan had decided he wanted gluten free pizza.  We worked our way through our options and finally found a restaurant that had an entire gluten free menu.  Emily, when asked, said she wanted rice.  When ordering Risotto, we had to have a minimum of two orders, so Aaron and Emily decided to both have the "Classic" risotto.  Ryan had spaghetti with butter and I had the cuttlefish with polenta.

While the food was good, what we didn't know was Classic Risotto, in Venice, is seafood risotto.  Emily seems to have an allergy to tomatoes, but luckily shellfish didn't seem to be an issue.  While she wasn't the neatest eater in the world, she very much enjoyed her "rice".

Cuttlefish and polenta came in an inky black sauce.  I had never had it before, but in my head I made that noise that Jane makes in Mary Poppins when her medicine comes out a different color.  It was good, but I feel like it was one of those things I can just check off the list and now I don't have to eat it again.

Venice still has so much enchantment and charm, but some aspects of it feel like a giant theme park.  The stalls of cheap souvenirs, seeing the same items over and over in all the shop windows, it all sort of reminds me of the souvenir shops in Six Flags or Disneyland.  Everything is expensive, the food, the gondola rides, even 75 min on a "bus boat" costs 7.50€ per person (luckily the kids are free).  Finding a hideaway or a secret locals only kind of place may not even exist anymore in Venice.  It's even difficult for the locals to live with the prices of everything rising.

At the end of the first night, I was a bit disenchanted.  There had been so many people that just following the kids through the streets and keeping track of them felt more like a chore than being able to just stroll through the streets.  It took so long to find our way from place to place that it felt like that's all we were doing. I will admit that Venice, at that moment, was not all I had hoped it to be.

The next morning was another crystal clear day.  We had a lovely breakfast in the hotel with meats, cheese, yogurt, cereal, milk and orange juice.  The best part about all of Italy is that even the smallest places have an espresso machine and being able to begin your day with a Cappucino (or Cappuccio) is one of my favorite things.

We headed out pretty early, and decided to drop off the bag at the train station and then just wind our way through the city.  I had found a restaurant that did actually have gluten free pizza for Ryan for lunch and since it was on the other side of the island, it gave us the perfect excuse to just wander.

It was much quieter and less crowded and I was feeling much better about the city.  Seeing it in the morning, before everyone had woken up after a late night, was wonderful.  Maybe it was the morning light or the breeze off the sea, but I could finally get a feeling of the city.  It's hard to explain, but when we were surrounded by tourists, it was like I could have been anywhere.  But, Sunday morning, when we weren't surrounded by strangers, you can feel the city.   You can see the Moorish and Persian influences that give Venice such a unique look.  You can see a man motoring down the canal with his son and their weekly groceries.  I highly recommend having a good map or even a phone with plenty of battery and Google Maps to get you back to where you want to go, but if you have no where to be, there can't possibly be a better or more beautiful place to get lost than Venice.

Fried Calamari with roasted red peppers,
grilled polenta and a red pepper sauce.

Our lunch was so good.  Ryan got his gluten free pizza, Emily had some more risotto, although she decided Ryan could not possibly eat his pizza alone, Aaron had pizza as well and I couldn't resist ordering the fried calamari.  It was possibly the best calamari I've ever had.  it was lightly breaded and crispy, cooked perfectly and served with a red bell pepper sauce.  That along with the house white wine made it the best meal we had in Venice.

Then Ryan discovered he still had our hotel keys in his pocket, so we took our second "boat bus" ride down the Grand Canal and returned to the hotel to give them back.  Then we wandered a bit longer while Emily took a short nap, and then Ryan fell asleep in Aaron's arms.  We headed back to the train station even though we had a couple hours before our train arrived.  Ryan found a fantastic bright pink flowered baseball cap with Italia written across it in hot pink as his souvenir from Venice.  I found a glass vase with purple leaves.

At the train station was a Gelateria called Grom that was completely gluten free.  Cones, cookies, every flavor, all completely gluten free.  We all enjoyed one last gelato before going out in front of the train station to terrorize the pigeons and listen to the electric guitar player play "Stairway to Heaven".

Terrorizing the birds.

It was an amazing weekend.  We could not have asked for better weather or a more perfect city for the kids to run around.  I will always remember Venice fondly.  It was truly the experience of a life time to get to see the unique beauty that is Venezia.

Here's a link to the entire album of Venice photos on Facebook.