Videos
Itinerary
Day 1 – Reached Venice at midnight (train delayed). Stayed 2 mins walk from railway station
Day 2 – So much to do in Venice at day and at night
Day 3 – Murano Glass Factory and Venice
Day 4 – Venice airport by bus transportation with luggage.
Places Covered
“Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.” – Truman Capote
Venice is more than you can imagine. It is an experience like every journey is, however it is a very unique one! Venice is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We reached Venice way past midnight since our train was delayed for hours. We were the last people leaving the deserted Venice train station and I was tensed. As soon as we stepped out of the station at almost 2AM, with 2 kids in an unknown city, I saw a party of people. There were ladies taking their dogs for a stroll, people walking,laughing and talking, boats on water and well lit street. We walked for about 3 minutes to our hotel and checked in.
- St Mark’s Square
- Basilica di San Marco
- Murano Glass Factory
- Ponte degli Scalzi
- Vaporetto
Our trip
Day 1
Breakfast at the hotel was elegant and the coffee was good. The front desk manager, I really wish I got his name was so polite and I usually don’t swoon on accents but his accent just floored me. I wish I had recorded him explaining to us where to go and what to do with 2 kids, that video would have gone viral.
Walk In Venice
We decided to walk into the city rather than taking the water taxi/Vaporetto as per the hotel managers directions. Wandering around in Venice is really one of the best things to do. We walked along narrow streets, ate gelatos at every corner, ate fresh fruits for 1 to 2 euros, found great souvenirs all reasonably priced, went up and down bridges, saw amazing gondolas, saw masks and glass sculptures everywhere, taxi boats, prayed in a church and then finally reached St Mark’s Square.
We decided to walk into the city rather than taking the water taxi/Vaporetto as per the hotel managers directions. Wandering around in Venice is really one of the best things to do. We walked along narrow streets, ate gelatos at every corner, ate fresh fruits for 1 to 2 euros, found great souvenirs all reasonably priced, went up and down bridges, saw amazing gondolas, saw masks and glass sculptures everywhere, taxi boats, prayed in a church and then finally reached St Mark’s Square.
St Mark’s Square is the tourist hub of Venice. Lots of tourist attractions like Dodges Palace, Basilica di San Marco. It has a lot of restaurants playing live music. My kid ran behind all the pigeons and entertained all the tourists there. After seeing Dodges Palace, we then walked to the Grand Canal and took the water taxi – Vaporetto back to our Hotel Room. Venice is one of the few cities that has survived without the use of motorcars in the 21st century.The views of Venice from a Vaporetto water taxi is lexperience in Venice was amazing. We got off at the Railway station and my favorite spot here was Ponte degli Scalzi bridge there. The beautiful live music, the people gathered up, eating at restaurants, gondola rides, the views from the bridge – everything looked so beautiful.
At night since there was so much life outside, we stepped out to hear some music, click pictures, buy night time toys for kids and then called it a night
Day 2
We decided to go to Murano today. We saw how glass is made in a factory. Rishi loved to watch this and was enthralled by it. We then took water taxi back to Grand Canal and went to stand in line to Basicila in St Mark’s square. They did not allow strollers so we had to take turns to go in. The church is beautiful. We spent time marveling the architecture and it is here that Rishi prayed for a Harry Potter quill. There were lots of expensive quills and he managed to buy a blue quill for 2 euros. He was so excited to write a letter to Harry Potter.
We then walked to the famous Rialto Bridge. It was so crowded. We also went inside a Music Museum – Museo della Musica which had no entrance fee. It is a walk through in a small church which has displayed classical musical instruments. Outside this place, there was a balloon artist that made big soap balloons and entertained kids.
We ate pasta in a restaurant and then walked around, got lost, found an Indian Restaurant and bought Indian food at Ganesh for Jay our 2 year old who did not want Pizzas and Pastas and wanted to eat Idlees, Dosas and Yogurt Rice. Outside the restaurant, we asked about Gondola ride and he offered to take us for 60 euros (student discount) however we had spent our euros and needed to get more currency exchanged and missed out on the deal. We are in Venice, one of our dream vacation spots and it would not be complete without the gondola ride, so we took one to get it off our bucket list. It was an experience and I am glad we did not skip this.
Day 3
We had to check out and go to the airport to catch our plane to Malaysia. We were very excited to go to Malaysia since my brother lived there and kids would play with their cousins for 6 full days!!
We had a lot of luggage and the only way to go to the airport was to hire a porter at the railway station, that would take your luggage across the bridge from the railway station and board it on the bus to the airport. The walk was about 10 minutes and the bus ride was about 25 minutes. I made a friend with a travel agent who was going to pick up tourist from USA and he discussed how Venice runs on tourism. He told me Venice was sinking 2mm each year.