Anniversary celebration in Venice

This year to celebrate our anniversary, Mark and I hired a babysitter to watch the kids all day and headed to Venice, Murano and Burano.  Since we only live an hour from Venice, we’ve been there a handful of times, but this was our second time there without kids, and it is a COMPLETELY different experience without them along.  It was just what we needed though, a day to reconnect without being in the parent roles.

We caught the 8:26am train to Venice and it was fantastic just being able to talk and not have to entertain Abbie and Ben the entire train ride, or try to keep Abbie in her seat or pick up countless toys for Ben to keep throwing on the floor.  Mark never ceases to amaze me with his intelligence and I feel like every time we actually get to have a decent conversation together, I learn something (or many things) from him.  He knows so much about things I don’t have a clue about and he’s able to break things down into “idiot talk” for me so I can understand it.  We grabbed a Coke to share and some chocolate croissants (which have a gross orange marmalade type coating on them – but they were our only choice), and headed to Venice.

We wanted to go to Murano and Burano, which are to islands close to Venice, so we bought our vaporetto (a Venetian bus basically) tickets and waited in line for quite a while to get on the darn thing.  But it gave me a chance to take a few pictures while we waited and lose a few pounds in water weight…

We’d never been down this canal before.  It seemed to be more of a residential area of Venice versus the touristy areas.  All the old ladies had their little rolling grocery bags and they all piled on the vaporetto with those things packed full.  None of them were overflowing though, and none of the ladies were carrying bags, so they much have it down to an art as to knowing how much fits in those things.  I should have taken a picture of one.

It took about 25 minutes to get to Murano from the St. Lucia train station, including 4-5 stops.

A Venetian gas station!

This entire small island is a cemetery.

(The posts on Murano and Burano will be separate from this one, so more on those islands later.)

It seems like every single time we’ve gone to San Marco since we’ve been here, there has been some sort of construction going on somewhere.  It’s annoying.  But anyway, Mark and I had dinner at Hard Rock Café (a must for American’s craving a real American burger and FOUNTAIN PEPSI!!!!)  It was good, despite having a warm milkshake…  I’ve never had a warm milkshake, and maybe it was because we were super hot from walking all over the place, but it seemed warm to both of us.

Mark bought me a hat that I’ve been wanting to use on our cruise, and we wandered around enjoying our time together and doing some window shopping.  I love exploring with Mark.  He truly is the perfect companion, and not just for traveling.  He’s so even tempered and able to look at the bigger picture all the time.  He’s kind and he’s smart and he’s patient and he’s hot.  =)  I wrote my parents numerous letters when Mark and I were just friends, before we started dating, and I mentioned many times how much fun I had with him and how I’d never had so much fun with anyone in my life.  Eight years after those letters and I still have more fun with him than anyone else.

Black and white shots are always my favorite.  I just feel like you notice more about pictures when you’re not distracted by colors.  Here are a few of my favorite shots from our time in Venice.

More on Murano and Burano soon!

Carnevale in Venice

Mark took the day off of work today, since his mom is here.  It was a beautiful, sunny day, in the 50’s, so we decided to head down to Venice for the last day of Carnevale.  I had really wanted to check out Carnevale, but not on a weekend because of the crazy crowds.  I didn’t want to take our two little ones down there and fight crowds all day, so I didn’t think it was going to work out this year.  But at the last minute it did, and I’m glad we went.

Luckily both of our kids are still wearable.  I strap Ben on in the mei tai my friend Emily made for me and Mark wears Abbie in the Ergo when she doesn’t want to walk.  It works out well, especially in Venice since Venice isn’t exactly a stroller friendly city, especially when it’s crowded.  Both kids did really well, except for Ben not wanting to nurse, but more on that in a different post.

Walking around Venice never gets old.  It’s a beautiful city.  Too bad our kids probably won’t remember any of it.  Today we bought Ben a little jacket to commemorate his first time in Venice.  I think it’ll fit him when he’s about 2.

Abbie got her face painted also.  Lots of people had really pretty face paintings so I thought it would be fun to get her one.  We paid 5E for a painting on her face that I probably could have done better even with my left hand…  Grrr.  Oh well.  Luckily she’s cute enough that it doesn’t matter how terrible the face painting is.

Carnevale (equivalent to “carnival” in English) starts 58 days before Easter and ends on Fat Tuesday (today).  Hundreds of people walk around Venice in elaborate costumes.  Surprisingly, it’s usually older people (50+) that have these super fancy costumes.  They normally walk around in pairs and stop when you want to take their picture or take pictures with them.  Young kids are dressed up in Halloween costumes and everyone in between is dressed up in crazy costumes.  The teen and 20’s age group seem to get into it quite a bit.

People even dress up their animals for the festivities!

From what I understand, people started using the masks during Carnevale to hide the difference between the social classes and put everyone on more even ground.  If you’ve ever been to Venice, you know these masks are sold EVERYWHERE and you can see many shops that make the masks as you walk through the streets.

We got some gelato and Abbie was sitting in this step eating hers and this lady in costume came up behind her and posed.  Abbie was much more interested in her gelato most of the time and maybe people took pictures of her and the lady.

I’m not sure I’ll ever get tired of Venice.  It’s a beautiful city and a photographers heaven!

Venice for the 5th time.

 

Or is it 6th?  I can’t remember.  Venice just never gets old.  There are always parts of the city that you haven’t seen before.

This time we went with Mark’s family.  I think I took more pictures than all of them combined, because I am a picture taking fiend.  And because I want to be able to look back and remember it all.

It was supposed to rain down in Venice today, but luckily it didn’t.  It was perfect picture taking weather, although it was a little on the cold side.  We went to a part of Venice that I hadn’t been to before and I think it’s my favorite part.  Seems to be more residential than the other parts we’ve seen and I like that.

Here are (a few of) the (230) pictures.  Enjoy!

(Aren’t those boots adorable?!)

(San Marco Square wasn’t nearly as flooded as I thought it would be.)

(That hat was my souvenir from this trip to Venice.  I love it!  Abbie wasn’t too sure about it..)

(Abbie’s 15 minute nap of the day.)

**Since I thought it was going to rain, I didn’t bring my DSLR, so all of these are taken with my Canon SD1400.**