Travel Diaries: Venice, Italy

Matthew and I decided a while ago we wanted to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary with the girls in Italy. We planned the trip ourselves, which we love doing together and it finally was time to go. After a nine hour direct flight from Atlanta, and trying to sleep on the plane, we arrived at Marco Polo airport in Venice and took the water taxi from the airport to the main island. We checked into our hotel, the Baglioni Hotel Luna, but our room was not quite ready, so we dropped our bags and walked around for about 15 minutes before deciding we all needed something to eat. We asked a few local people where to go and sadly, I don’t remember the name of the cafe, but it was on St. Mark’s Square. It had coffee and croissants, so it was a winner because we just needed something to keep us going. It looked like a cafe with a good mixture of tourist and locals (not just a tourist trap) and was fun to regroup, people watch and figure out a plan for the day. Crazy enough, the second we sat down, around 9:30, we saw some Chattanooga friends coming through the alley to the square, so that was super fun! Honestly, we did not have any plans not knowing how we would feel, so we loved walking around and taking in everything. There really is no other place in the world like Venice, which is why I highly recommend a low key day the first day to soak it all in. We saw Saint Mark’s Basilica, did some shopping, then went back to the hotel where our gorgeous room was ready (where we all took a much needed power nap).

Off to dinner . . .

One of our favorite restaurants in New York has always been Harry Cipriani, so while in Venice, we wanted to go to the original, Harry’s Bar. It also came highly recommended to us, so I made a reservation a month prior to our trip. This was a perfect first night meal. We slept through lunch with our power naps, so we were ready for a hearty dinner and it lived up to what we expected. It was the perfect start to Italy and perfect for our night in Venice!

Second day in Venice . . .

Our second day, we went to the island of Murano off of Venice. Instead of setting up a half day tour, we opted to do what our hotel suggested and went over by a boat our hotel set up for us and did a short two hour tour where the kids had the option of a few hands on glass blowing activities, and lots of learning and observing. Our tour guide we linked up with once we were on Murano was amazing and spent a lot of time with all four of us. I highly recommend going over to Murano. This made for a fascinating morning where we got to see some extraordinary pieces in one of the glassblowing museums on Murano and some detailed pieces being made. Sarah’s favorite of the sculptures were the glass blown purses, of course! Overall, it was very much worth doing while in Venice.

After seeing Murano, the hotel sent a boat to pick us up from Murano and we did the most popular, must do activity on Venice, a gondola ride. It really was a lot of fun going through the canals with the girls and seeing Venice through their eyes. After the gondola ride, we walked over to the Rialto Bridge, shopped a little more, got some gelato for lunch and checked out. When planning, we opted to only stay one night in Venice and I really wish we had planned to stay a little longer. We were not quite ready to leave, but we caught the 4:00 train from Venice to Florence, which was seamless and easy.

Baglioni Hotel Luna

shop the post

As a side note on the Italy Travel Diary posts, Matthew and I did our own research to plan the trip. We love doing this together and always have. With that said, there are a few things we would do differently and we are by NO means experts on Italy. Through the blog posts, I want to share what we did with the girls, what we loved, and a few things we may not have loved. I always love seeing what other families do to get ideas. I’m sure a travel agent may have better ways to lay out the trip or a better itinerary with dinner reservations, but we don’t like traveling where every minute is planned and we love leaving things to look forward to in places we know we want to travel back to, which includes a trip like this to Italy. With all that said, I hope you enjoy these notes on Italy. XOXO, Tracy