Venezia

View of Santa Maria della Salute fro Piazza San Marco

It was a four hour train journey from Rome to Venice on the Frecciarossa.  Apart from the occasional delays, intercity travel by train has been fantastic - clean, comfortable, and gets us right into the city. On arrival, we were greeted at the platform by Annamaria and her daughter Costanza. Anna and I were staying in International House, in our first year in University of Warwick more than 20 years back. It was so good to see her in person after all these years. We took the vaporetto from Santa Lucia station to San Marco where we did a quick tour in the beautiful sunset before heading to our hotel.  Later, we went to a nearby restaurant for dinner because we haven't yet figured our way around the Venetian calli, especially not in the dark. We had a great time catching up on what we've been up to since graduation and learned more about the Italian way of life.

The plan for the next morning was to walkabout aimlessly and see what we chance upon. As Anna said, Venice is an one big open air museum. There are beautiful and interesting shops and cafes at every turn, and galleries, churches, bridges in between all the multi-coloured buildings that are full of character. Our walk from Piazza San Marco to the imposing Santa Maria della Salute took us through Calle Larga XXII Marzo, the address for all luxury brands. Our walk to the Ponte de Rialto brought us to the fresh produce market and the sight of the giant hands emerging from the Grand Canal to support the Ca'Sagredo Hotel, a sculpture by Lorenzo Quinn.

We did a gondola ride on our Day 3 in Venice. Valentino, our gondolier, was friendly, great with the kids and serenaded us with 3 songs. He also got the kids to post with his gondolier hat. The gondola took us through some quiet canals, Piazza St Marco and under the Bridge of Sigh. It all seems very touristy, but I am all for that these days! We spent the later part of the day at the Doge's Palace. By now the kids were having a museum overload, but when they saw the Palace courtyard and the interior, they were genuinely impressed. On this trip, I realised that it is worth giving the kids a nudge to visit the museums even if they fuss about it. We also got a perspective of the Bridge of Sigh from the inside as we crossed from the Palace to the prison. It was pretty grim.

On Day 4, we took the Line 2 vaporetto service from San Marco to the train station. Even as we were leaving, we were treated with wonderful views of this UNESCO Heritage city from both sides of the Grand Canal. The family was unanimous about Venice being the favourite part of this vacation.