European Vacation - Venice

We have been planning and planning and planning - well, Amy has, and the trip to Europe has finally arrived! We were excited to head out, although not looking forward to the overnight flight at all.  We flew from Orlando to London, where we would take advantage of the 8 hour layover to head in to see the Churchhill War Rooms.

We flew Norse, a budget airline (much, much more on our thoughts about this airline for our final post), and we didn't want to have to pay a ton to check our luggage, so even though we were about to embark on 2 week trip, we packed in international carry-ons and new specifically sized backpacks.  We knew that we had laundry at the various condos, so it was doable.

All set and ready to go!

As it turned out, even with nicer seats, we still didn't sleep on the plane but we were thankful for the little bit of extra room.

We landed in Gatwick, hopped the Express train in, stowed our luggage at a nearby Bounce storage location and headed over to Churchhill War Rooms.  We enjoyed a few hours there before making our way back to Heathrow where we would fly out that night to Venice.  For anyone trying this, we did the fast pass through Customs and then fast pass on the way back through security to give ourselves a little more certainty that we wouldn't be caught in a long line - it wasn't that expensive and it worked like a charm!

We are tired, but all of us were awake -- haggard, but awake!

Always a pre-requisite picture with the red telephone booth!

And of course with Big Ben!

We flew on EasyJet over to Venice, with not as much room but she still found a way to curl up a bit and try to doze.

We landed in Venice at 9P, made it through customs and caught our water taxi over to the old island.  It was a lovely night, and it was an open top boat in the back that Addison enjoyed watching the charming sites of  Venice slide by in the night.

Our airbnb was right on a canal with the gondoliers floating by, it was perfect!

The next day was Friday and we met up with the Bergherms to start touring.  We wandered around the main square, doing a bit of a scavenger hunt (although not everyone had it on their phone, so it was hard to keep everyone engaged per se) -- create one yourself on ChatGPT in the future, free and you can share it with everyone!

St. Mark's Cathedral

Venice Clock Tower

Outside the Doge

We would see the bridge of sighs multiple times

It was lovely in Venice (and Rome) as they had random water spigots that you could refill your water bottle at.  It was SO HOT and HUMID there - it was practically Florida!  We were grateful for our water and fans.

At 11ish, we headed over to up to the top of the bell Tower - where we were grateful to have a nice cool breeze - we enjoyed cooling off and seeing the city!

Being a little photographer!

Seeing the figurines at the top of the bell tower

We were up there when the bells went off, poor Zach's ears thought they were going to implode so he had to plug them while the bells were ringing!

After lunch, we headed over to Murano to see the glass blowing factory - it was neat to see.  We had considered buying something but frankly the prices were so high that it was hard to justify in only an hour to find something that we liked well enough to buy, and to ship it back home because was no room left in those tiny suitcases we had for 2 weeks!

After Murano, we went over to Burano the lace island.  That was really neat - we went into a little shop where we were able to talk to the owner, and even wandered through a little alley and watched two old ladies sitting in the shade making lace - it is a time consuming art, and so neat to see the way that it was done originally!

Trying to capture the picture of the two lady friends tatting their lace behind us!

Loved the colors and the flowers on this little island!

After dinner, we parted ways and we headed over to a Gondola ride - it was a highlight as our gondolier was very charming and entertaining. 

The bridge of sighs again in the background.

Super fun!

As we wandered back to our condo, we enjoyed the beautiful sunset, and some gelato (the first of many!)

Thank you Venice for a lovely time, we could have easily stayed another day to spend more time wandering through many of the shops on Murano, the "ritzy" part of Venice (who knew we had never seen it before!) and through some of the less known places like the Jewish area --- we will save it for another time perhaps, a good reason to go back!