While we were running the inaugural Star Wars Dark Side Half Marathon, Brian stayed with the kids. They were done with breakfast and just hitting the pool when we came back, so we were able to shower, sit for a moment and grab a bite before heading into Epcot for the day.

We really enjoyed staying at the budget resort. Having stayed at the Grand Floridian last time, going to a budget hotel this time really served its purpose. We got a lot more space and the super themed rooms and pools were perfect for young kids.

YES! I did it. I made the entire family wear matching shirts. I saw these at a good discount at the Disney store online, and it took very little convincing to get all the ladies on board. Brian even wears his around the yard sometimes still! I will say it was the easiest day to keep track of everyone, and I’m pretty sold on the idea for future vacations (sorry in advance)

While Jameson and most of our group did Test Track with our FastPasses, Coraline and I hung out in the cars on display when you finish the ride. She loved it, and sat happily for almost 20 minutes. We didn’t even realize it when everyone had finished the ride!

We made sure to go do the Sea building and visited with Crush and I got another great photo next to the Nemo statues. Jameson wasn’t a huge fan of the aquarium but it was nice to sit down a bit during Turtle Talk with Crush for the adults.

New for me (having been to Disney quite a bit for races myself with my side of the family in the past year), was the Garden Festival. They had a cool butterfly house and Meemaw got a kick out of taking a photo of all the shaped topiaries we passed.

Yes, I think Epcot is more geared to adults, but the kids absolutely had fun. Meemaw and the kids were partial to Figment, with all the activies you can do at the end of the ride. They were also fascinated with Spaceship Earth, which we never miss.

Original Mouseketeers relaxing

But the highlight, at least for Coraline, was the princess dinner at Akershus. I’ve eaten there before, and I’m not sure it’s worth the price in general, but to see Coraline’s face definitely was. It’s easiest to see all those princesses close up at a dinner, that’s for sure! (I think Jameson’s highlight was the Test Track)

So ended our half day at Epcot, which really was the perfect amount of time there. The only thing we really lacked during this visit to Epcot was Duffy bear! Last time, Jameson got to meet his character, but this time he wasn’t on the schedule. Also, they don’t make the little keychain Duffy bears any more, so we ended up with a big one. Tyler found a little keychain Duffy in China though dressed in a cute little outfit! So now Jameson has 3 little and 1 big Duffy bears, the only stuffed animal he’s been attached to for the past couple years.

Jameson loved the big ball. He did a lot of fussing for other photos (I admit I take a lot), but he definitely wanted this one!

On our last day in Venice and final day of our vacation (I don’t think leaving the next morning counts as a day of vacation), we had a special tour planned at the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace). I booked us for a behind the scenes tour called the Secret Itineraries tour, and it was a lot of fun. Not to mention, our tour guide spoke excellent English so that we could really appreciate and enjoy what she was speaking about.

This tour takes you through secret rooms in the palace, and to where the infamous Casanova was held. Afterwards, we had time to visit the main rooms of the museum.

This is the Giants’ Staircase leading into the courtyard, where we met for our tour. We learned about the politics of Venice and who really ran things (not really the Doge). The position had a very modest office, surprisingly.

I bet you can guess what this room was for.

We saw a number of cells for the upper class (lower class prisons were elsewhere part of the main museum) and got to go in a couple. They were stark, dark, and had low ceilings. The doors on some of these were super small.

Coming out of the cells and prisons of the upper class, came out a secret door to view a room in the main area of the palace, and then finally came out to actually visit the rest of the grand rooms of the palace.

A lot of the rooms have been refinished, so only 3 rooms have original flooring, once of which is below.

This is a secret message slot in the wall.

This unbelievable work of art is in one of the largest rooms in Europe and actually the longest canvas painting in the world, Il Paradiso.

I love capturing beautiful ceilings.

Last we visited the final area in the palace, and crossed the Bridge of Sighs. The name supposedly refers to the sighs of prisoners who see their last view freedom as they glimpsed the lagoon through the window.

Also located along the Piazza San Marco, next door to the Doge’s Palace is also St Mark’s Basilica. You can pay to gain entry around a certain time, which we chose to do. It isn’t advertised really, but between 11:30 to 12:30, the ceiling of the church is illuminated in all it’s gold glory.

We had the opportunity to see the illumination for the first 15 minutes or so of our visit, and the difference was simply indescribable. From the bright gold to a dim ceiling. St. Mark is buried here beneath the altar and you can see it behind glass and bars.

After our last scheduled stops of the day, we did some shopping. We stopped at a store recommended by our hotel as having true Venetian glass (this is a sketchy industry in Venice, and we didn’t have the opportunity to visit the traditional glass blowing island off the coast).

I am still not certain that is the case for the jewelry we bought, but at least some of the glass in his shop was hand blown, as he was working right there as we shopped (and happily gave me permission to take his photo).

Another Venetian specialty is apparently squid ink pasta. I got some for lunch, and mine came complete with parts of the squid. It’s best to get this in season rather than a re-hydrated form of the sauce, and I was in luck. It was definitely an experience. I was okay with the sauce (particularly with closed eyes), but the squid itself was pretty touch and chewy and not super enjoyable.

We also visited Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. We visited most any church that was along our way and open, though most of the churches in Venice cost money to view. Several Doges were buried here.

Our final item on our wishlist included a traditional gondola ride. Say what you will about the tourist factor, we chatted our gondolier up after about 5 minutes into the ride and he warmed up likewise and it turned into a very enjoyable ride. We took some side canals, and I enjoyed seeing the view from the water. He even took a very good photos of us when we were done!

After another dinner at our new favorite spot, we wandered for the rest of the evening. We walked from what seemed the northern most edge of Venice to the south. We ended our night and our vacation in St Mark’s Square with gelato, of course.

Our travels from Venice to the airport were simple, though paying the hotel the day prior was not since their credit card machine broke and mom had to visit two separate ATMs to withdraw enough cash to pay them. That part was uncomfortable enough that it was almost not worth the prime location and price of our stay.

We hopped aboard the boat that goes directly to the airport with the tickets we bought the previous day, and we were on our way! Getting relieved of our luggage at the airport was quite nice after hauling it around during our trip. We didn’t travel like my college self would have, but we also didn’t travel in style, so that luggage definitely got heavier over time without any strong arms to help us! We did okay though, and while I would’ve loved one more day to see the Venetian islands, I didn’t feel like we left the city, or any of the cities, with missed opportunities. We saw all of the things we wanted to see, and did everything we really wanted to do. We ate well, walked a lot, and finished our long days with a bottle of wine.

Arrivederci, Italia!

It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly a year since our big trip to Italy! Also hard to believe it’s taken me this long to finish recapping the experience. Today we’re going to go back to Venice. But before that, we stopped at San Marco in Florence. San Marco is famous in part for the paintings by Fra Angelico in the rooms of the old rooms of the Dominicans.

My favorite part though was the old manuscripts, because this was the first place I had seen that allowed photography. I am knowledgeable enough to know that you should never use flash when dealing with old, decaying paper or works of art, but even still, most places do not let you take any photographs.

It was definitely worth the final stop before our train to Venice, and we were also happy that the skies were clearing up from the rain and clouds the days prior. Our first impression of Venice was two fold: confusing, but also amazing. Here we were, no intimidating traffic!

I had been really nervous about Venice, and had researched where we needed to go outside the train station and which boat to board (Vaparetto), so of all the cities, I was the most prepared for this one. Even still, it took a little while to find our hotel San Salvador whose entrance was hidden down a little alleyway.

We chose the hotel because it was close to the heart of the city without being too expensive, but that also meant traveling a bit further with our luggage in hand.And because of that, we were also dealing with crowds and bridges. Bonus: we got to share a bed. ha!

But we made it, and we did find ourselves really acclimating to this city more so than the others within a day of being there. We were much more relaxed about getting lost once we didn’t have our luggage dragging behind us!

After unloading and getting information about places to eat, we headed out to the heart of Venice, Piazza San Marco. It’s the only “plaza” in Venice, with all other areas called Campos or “squares”.

We had tickets for the inside of Basilica di San Marco in a couple days, but we viewed the outside and around the plaza, and decided to go ahead and line up for the Campanile. There’s no stairs for this tower, just a cramped elevator. The skies were cloudy and it was cold, so we figured this would be the shortest line we’d see during our stay (and we were right!).

The views are nice, but while we were up there, the bells began to ring. It was loud. And startling.

That evening, we started what became a nightly routine of meandering around the city at night, though this first night, we were just searching for a place to eat dinner! We had decided to try Pizzareia Casa Mia, and we didn’t realize how popular this restaurant is.

We got lucky and arrived early enough to snag a table and split a bottle of wine. I ate a sea food dinner and my shrimps had eyes. After dinner we returned to the Piazza to look at it at night.

This is the infamous Bridge of Sighs, which I explained to mom that we’d be learning more about in the coming days.

The next morning, we woke early to watch the start of the Vogalonga! I didn’t know about this event until after we booked our vacation, but we were excited to be able to watch a local event like this. There are two boat races in Venice, the more famous one later in the year.

This one started with a protest of the motor boats that have overtaken Venice. While I appreciated being able to travel as needed to and from the city, within it’s bounds, mom and I didn’t need the motor boats and walked everywhere. So, I could understand why they wanted those quieter waters back, especially this day when all the motor transportation are shut down for the race.

The best places to watch the Vogalonga are the beginning at the Piazza, and several hours later at Cannaregio, a section of Venice to the north where the boats funnel through a narrower canal on their way to the finish.

The waters were very still. We wandered the city for the most part. Because it was Sunday, a lot of churches were closed for visitation, so there were only a few things on our to do list for the day. The forced slowness of the day was a little annoying for me, but it didn’t bother mom. It did help set the tone of our more relaxed visit to Venice than the other cities during our travels.

We had breakfast at a place that doesn’t much deserve the name and moved on from there quickly. We definitely missed the breakfast buffets at the previous hotels.

We walked to a south east end of the city to Santa Maria della Salute, which we were able to go inside. It was cool to walk to the very tip of the city outside the church here, standing at the edge of Venice and looking back at the Piazza.

We walked from south to north, the entire stretch of the city, to watch some more of the race later that day. This was more fun than the early morning launch because of the cheering, excitement, and the bells that Venetians rang from their windows.

We had a few other stops after the race, including the Scuola Grande di San Rocco.

Also, Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari.

The ceiling of the church of San Stefano was too amazing to not photograph, though we were not supposed to. I avoided flash and didn’t photograph any of the alcoves or other sacred spaces in the church, but I simply had capture this amazing intricate ceiling.

We even managed to find the spiral staircase all on our own. It was definitely off the beaten path and difficult to find around the narrow alleyways and vague directions we had.

All in all, it was a day of exploration of the city of Venice. We started to feel comfortable wandering around without being entirely certain where it would lead. We started to enjoy it when we were actually away from the crowds of people in the more distant parts of the city.

For dinner, we chanced upon Bacaro Osteria Barababao, and we loved it so much that we returned there for dinner again the very next night. We spent the evening wandering Venice, feeling very comfortable in this city lacking cars. Of course, I’m certain there is crime, but the lack of a big nightlife scene and the fact that many visitors only come for the day meant the nights seemed much quieter and felt very safe.

If you haven’t guessed yet, Venice was my favorite city to visit, and a wonderful way to conclude our trip. I have one more full day in Venice to share with you before we boarded our flight for home.