Last night before bed, I presented Patrick, Julie and Sarah with our top-three list of things we want to do today. In no particular order: gondola ride, glass blowing factory tour and Doge’s Palace. I left their room with Patrick chanting glass tour! Glass tour! All he was missing was the foam finger declaring the glass tour number one.
On our way to the canal to see if the taxi strike had indeed ended, a man walked up and offered us a free taxi ride to the such-and-such glass company’s tour. Julie was worried about what the guy was up to. I assured her that the only catch was that the company wants us to drop a load of cash there in their shop after seeing their glass blowing demonstration.
I was fairly sure we wouldn’t even get to the island of Murano to find out if I was right. The taxi rocked back and forth and back and forth… this was not fun. Again, I wasn’t sick. I was scared.
Otherwise, the tour was what I expected. We watched some glass blowing that was interesting, but revealed no secrets about how they make the amazing patterns in some of the Murano glass. Kaitlyn was enthralled by the older man who kept making little glass horses. That was followed by a tour of the seemingly endless showroom with our guide lurking behind us. Kaitlyn was amazing; she didn’t touch anything. Some of the glass on display was amazing. But it was all more than I wanted to spend on glass. Patrick was going much more slowly, so we gave up and went back into the furnace room to watch that man make more glass horses. I finally searched the showroom and found Patrick filling out the shipping form for his about-to-be acquired glass objet d’art. It’s very pretty. It’s very brave for a house with two cats and two dogs. It would stand almost no chance at all in a house with a four year old. But his big spending did get us a taxi ride back to the main island. Bill and I sorta wanted to go see some other demonstrations, but we figure none are showing anything too amazing, for fear of revealing too much to the competition next door.
The taxi dropped us off in an area we hadn’t been and we had no idea where we were or how to get to where we wanted to be. That meant a lot more walking.
Today it’s Bill’s turn to nap or nap-observe after lunch. I went out shopping with everyone else. They were hunting souvenirs and gifts. I was hunting our own piece of Murano glass. I found a couple of things (including some Christmas presents) but had about given up on finding the vase Bill sent me out to get. It is hard to pick something like that out, because I know he had something in mind that he’d seen earlier. I found a couple of things I was going to take him back to look at, assuming I could find those shops again. Then, a wrong turn and a dead-end on our way back to the hotel led us into a shop with the perfect item. Well, I think it’s perfect. We’ll see what Bill thinks. The guy wrapped it all up so very carefully I’m not going to open it until we get home.
Item number two on our to-do list was Doge’s Palace. The Murphy half of the group opted for napping. We dragged Kaitlyn to the palace. She wanted to find the princess. The book about going to Italy with kids said it’s great for little ones… like a Star Wars set. I don’t know about that. I liked it, but like most museum type experiences with Kaitlyn, I didn’t get to read or learn as much about it as I’d have liked.
Once everyone else woke up, we were out for that gondola ride. Of course, the guy who offered us a discount was not around. The guy we did deal with seemed less than thrilled at our attempt to bargain. Kaitlyn and I just stood in the background and waited to be told to get in the boat. We sat in the big back seat with Bill. It was a little crowded, but when Kaitlyn sat on our knees it was ok. It also made it easier to keep her still so that the boat wouldn’t rock too much. The one condition I put on getting in one of those things was that there is no way I’m riding one in the grand canal. If ours had started to head that way I don’t know what I’d have done. I think the gondolier cut our ride short since we’d agreed to a lower price. It didn’t matter. It was still an incredible way to see Venice… in the back canals where the old homes have doors right on the water. We saw a lot of locals decorating their boats for a big celebration that’s tonight. Patrick told us earlier that it was a holiday and we came just short of calling him crazy. But it turns out he’s right. I still don’t know exactly what is being celebrated but late tonight there will be fireworks over the water.
Dinner was a given tonight. We were back at the restaurant with Grandma’s spaghetti sauce. The manager remembered us. And the spaghetti was just as good as the night before. (Thank goodness for that!)