Just a little day trip

One city my mom has wanted to see then changes her mind about is Venice. So with some convincing from my step dad, she said we had to go. Because there is no way in hell I'm taking my kids to Venice w/o Ryan, the only day we could go alone was Sunday and we couldn't stay the night because Ryan had school early the next morning. Venice is about a 3 hour train ride depending on what train your on. We left at the beautiful time of 6am to catch the bus to the train station. The train ride was actually a close tie for my favorite part. 3 hours of relaxing and reading a good book! So easily pleased when your a mother of 3 :)
We got to Venice at noon and navigated our way through the city. It is such a charming city and so unique. The buildings and windows are so different compared to Florence and Rome and the windows have character. The word "character"may come up often, just to warn you. A lot of them had flower pots in the window and it made the city look a lot nicer. We of course bought some lace, that is one of the things Venice is known for, I bought little white baby shoes that had pretty lace on them. No, I am not pregnant, just planning ahead for the next baby blessing, no, 3 is not enough for me. We want to make sure we multiply and replenish the earth. Oh and be as non Italian as possible. So we worked our way towards San Marco Piazza which by the way was SO much better than taking the vaporetto (water bus).
On the Grand Canal was a big boat race. It was neat cause it wasn't an intense race but more for fun so people wore costumes and did crazy things. My fav was the boat full of Scott's, one person playing a bag pipe, a couple of them banging their paddles on the boat, one chanting/singing and the guy in the back was chugging beer.

San Marco square was amazing, again so different than the Italy I have seen. My second favorite piazza, Pisa being my first. For some reason, a big tourist attraction was buying seed like stuff and feeding it to the pigeons. Not just throwing it, but ALLOWING pigeons to land on you and eat. "Hurry Hurry mom take a picture, the pigeon is on my head, isn't it so cute!!" no, it's disgusting. That thing is infested with who knows what, something Italian. Then we went to the top of the Campanile di San Marco, which is a 300 ft bell tower with an awesome view of the city. So I guess we DID have time to see all of Venice. ;) We went into the Basilica, just another European church if you ask me. And since we were in Venice, all the tour books said you HAD to ride the vaporetto. At 6 euros a pop, not worth it! I do not have the patience to ride that thing. I thought it was much more scenic to walk from the station. But then again, while on the water bus, it started to rain, so good thing we were on the bus. Then we caught the 5 pm train back to Florence. It was a fun trip, got a lot of reading done but wish I had more time to shop and wander through the city.