Venice Trip: Getting there

We are scheduled to be moving back to the U.S. this summer and have been thinking a lot about what trips we should take before moving home. When we asked the kids recently, "What is the one place you want to visit in Europe?" the response from Emilie was "Disneyland Paris!" and from James, "Venice!" which was seconded by Micaela. David and I talked about it and came to the conclusion that a short trip to Venice was possible.

We packed last night, with the plan being to spend only one night in Venice. Everyone was instructed to pack only pjs, a toothbrush and clean underwear and socks. We would need to be carrying everything around with us, so this would certainly be a case of less is more. Oh, and umbrellas. We were expecting rain in Venice today.

Bound for Marco Polo Airport. We were out the door at 6:30 this morning, parked the car at the Frankfurt Airport in a Lufthansa employee parking garage and took a special employee bus to the gate.  We were able to by-pass the long security line in favor of the short airline employee security line and after a long, long walk (at the end of which I was sure we would have arrived in Venice itself) we arrived at the gate.  We fly standby and this is the point at which doubt and fear sets in.  What do we do if we don't get on? Or what if there are only three or four seats?  Who would go and how would we meet up again?  The gods were smiling down on us as we were almost immediately assigned seats on the next flight out.

Emmie passing the time reading Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales which I downloaded for free onto my Kindle. Gotta love the Kindle.

Flying over the Alps

After landing, we boarded a slow, public boat that had us arriving in the City of Canals an hour and half later (it made a few stops along the way).

Approaching Venice with the Dolomite Mountains (southern part of the Alps) in the background

View of St. Mark's Campanile, the bell tower of St. Mark's Basilica

View of Basilica of St Mary of Health at the tip of the Grand Canal

We disembarked at San Marco's Square, right into a long line of souvenir carts and many, many tourists.

At this point, James turned to Micaela and said, "Can you believe we're in Venice?!!" I have never heard the kids say something like that with no prompting from me or David.