Venice and San Marino

 

Last time BK and I were in Europe a highlight of ours was Venice, we visited in November on my 25th birthday. So I was looking forward to returning but didn’t want the same kind of trip repeated. At least it was going to be warmer this time!

 

We decided to stay out at an outlying beach area. Then got an all day pass on the ferries and spent a lot of time out on the water. The first day we stuck around our apartment, did a beach walk, a look at some shops, and that ever pesky school work!

 

The following day we set out on a ferry toward Murano, the island known for glass blowing, we went via Burano, the one known for lace making but didn’t stop there. We found a glass factory and got a booking time to go back and see the glass master in action. There was still a bit of time until then and lunch time was approaching so we found a park, the kids had a play and I prepared some sandwiches we’d brought along. As we sat and ate I realised this was not a park, there were bags, and classrooms…it was a school! Whoops! So it was a quick walk to somewhere else followed by lunch.

 

The glass master was amazing, he’d been an apprentice for 10 years and then a master for 30. Talk about a life career! He made a glass apple, vase and horse in front of us. The furnace was cranking at 1100 degrees! Hot! We had a lady explaining things to us, she swapped between English, Italian and French speaking all of them fluently, she later told me she also spoke a bit of Venetian too! Wow!! Of course on the way out I found a glass Christmas decoration so that’s another one to add to the collection! 😃

 

Then it was off to the main Venice island, which was a quick ferry ride via the cemetery island, we did not get off! We walked from one side of the island to St Marco’s square on the other We managed to get lost on our way to St Marco’s as we lost the signs pointing that way to go but we carried on, however trying to find your own way in Venice never works because you always seem to end up down an alleyway facing a canal with no bridge to cross. So we retraced our steps and refound the signs to carry on! Gelato helped our situation 😎

 

Making the most of our 1 day pass we chose a ferry that does a loop through the grand canal. It was good to sit on the back of the boat enjoying the sights rather than walking it, though I did walk 18k steps that day!! After that we tried to find a toilet but at a cost of €1.50 each to use it we held on till we got home!

A long but great day. We didn’t do the famous gondola ride, because at €80 for a 30 minute ride we decided ‘Nah, we’ve done one before, the kids can do it when they’re older’.

 

The following day was a rest day, no one felt like walking anywhere! So school work, laundry, supermarket and sandcastle building on the beach it was.

 

See you again Venice, I wonder if it will it be another 10 years?

 

It was then off down the east coast of Italy, can’t say much about the east coast beaches, they were pretty average. I also seemed to get us an Airbnb which was not close to anything interesting so we had lots of rest. One of the days we went for a drive an hour northwest of where were staying to a mini country called San Marino.

We went early, as we’ve learnt that’s the thing to do! We got a park by the gondola and went up into the old town. It seemed to us that it may have been tax free country as there were lots of duty free type items, and guns!?

We walked around, ate lunch at a restaurant…pizza 😄 Talked to a couple of Swiss cyclists who were having a long weekend cycling around the area, we told them what we were doing and all of a sudden we had a captive audience of everyone sitting around us (who all of a sudden could understand English 🙄) they, like 99% of people we have encountered thought it was an awesome idea and what great parents we were (ego boost ✔️ haaaa!) and lucky LUCKY kids.

I found a Christmas shop which had signs ‘no photos’ plastered everywhere and also bought my first Christmas gift. Then it was back to the apartment to work out how on earth I was going to keep the present in good condition while we finished off our 4 months left in Europe! Hmm.

 

Till next time,

 

Claire

 

Budget update will come on the next blog 😎