Our final destinations of the trip were brand new for all of us. We took a high speed train from Florence Station into Venice on Thursday morning

Coming directly out of the Santa Lucia train station in Venice (the further point cars and trains can enter to the island of Venice) you can see the Grand Canal and very “Venice” style architecture. I was hooked already.
We bought 48 hour unlimited tickets on the “Vaporetto” or water buses. The Venetian equivalent of the subway/train system. The water buses hold 50 or so people and go station to station along the water on a set schedule. There are also private water taxis which were much more posh… but also much more pricey. Our 48 hour pass for the water buses for $40/person- a one-time water taxi is $100-200 depending on where you want to go.

We were dropped off at a station just 1-2 minutes’ walk from our hotel. This hotel was sooo nice compared to the other two. Nice marble bathroom, a gorgeous canal view out the window, but the mattress was actually the worst of the trip I would find. lol

Our first few steps out of the hotel had us crossing a bridge right behind St Mark’s square and the Doge’s Palace with a great view of the famous Bridge of Sighs, named because its the bridge prisoners crossed after they were sentenced to death in the court to go back to the prison, that they would sigh looking out at Venice for the last time. Famously, Casanova spoke of crossing this bridge before his escape from the prison.
We took our first look at St Mark’s Square, the Campanile and the Doge’s Palace.
Right around the corner we saw a Gondola spot to hop in for your rides. We all collectively decided we didn’t need a gondola ride… we just watched a few paddling through and that was good enough. 🙂
We hit up a shop for lunch and gelato and then proceeded to keep exploring the city. I got a walnut and fig flavor that was excellent.
I had saved this house/museum – the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo in case we were in the area… and Venice was MUCH smaller than I expected from the map… so we ended up over here quickly… so we went inside and climbed ALL of those spiral stairs to a terrace up top.
It really wasnt anything famous in the past- it was a rich family’s house for a long time…. it was a filming location for Orson Welles’ Othello…but really it was just a unique architecture from around 1500.
Randomly in the art gallery of modern streaky bright colored weird art was this Renaissance Tintoretto
This is labeled the “Mozart house” on Google Maps… but when you read further- “Mozart stayed at this house once during a visit to Venice during Carnival when he was 5 years old” hahaha but there you have it- a house where baby Mozart once stayed. 🙂
Next along the walk we came across a perfumery I wanted to stop into because their bottles were beautiful online…
I ended up with a small bottle that I could fit in my toiletry bag of the Vinegia 21…but disappointingly, the small bottle wasn’t pretty.
We decided to spend a bit touring around the inside of the Teatro La Fenice, one of the most famous opera houses along with La Scala in Milan.
yep. Looks the same lol
We crossed the canal over to the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, a church from the 1600s. Built on a platform of over a million wooden piles!
A floating water bus station
Kegan decided he needed a coffee before we went back to our room, and Norah decided she wanted one too- and she drank it! A real Italian Macchiato… and she said she liked it… in Europe, counter and take-away has a different price than tables, since there really isn’t a tipping culture. So, if you want to be served at a table, the food costs more. I REALLY like that set up.
For dinner, we had reserved at a very fancy seafood spot…and since Carnival season (equivalent to Mardi Gras in the states) just ended 2 days prior, it was dead empty. Overall, the food was fantastic…but the prices and the portions left a little to be desired. I wouldn’t recommend it because it wasn’t enough food for what we paid for it…and their menu was MUCH smaller than what was available on their website.. so we struggled to find stuff that we even wanted… they did have oysters but they were 6 euro a piece lol and as a now gulf-coast girl getting gulf-coast oysters at 50 cents a piece at happy hour, I just couldn’t do it. ha
a squid ink tortellini with cuttlefish, sour cream and mint
Cardoncello mushroom with garlic panacotta and sage sauce
Grilled octopus with black cabbage (kale) and artichokes
Monkfish with romaine lettuce. (good luck finding the 1 oz of monkfish lol )
Norah’s pork shank with mushrooms with sweet and sour onion
Kegan’s dessert was some sort of apple cider panna cotta or something… I can’t remember
Norah and I had tiramasu

It was amazing when we left at 10pm from the restaurant, Venice was all to us. No one around, empty alleys and streets, calm water… it was really cool.

When we got up Friday, it was back to normal with the typical bustle of a city.

The famous Rialto Bridge. The oldest of the 4 bridges that spans the Grand Canal. Absolute tourist trap of selfie sticks and Instagram fakeness. The bridge itself is gorgeous.. and iconic… so I get it. but 30 seconds on it was enough for me. 🙂
We made a stroll through the Liberia Acqua Alta
Kegan was very amused by the painting of “Fire Exit” on the wall that leads to the water. lol
Saw this picturesque house as we left and just really loved how it stood at the fork of two canals like the Flatiron building in New York. On the flight home, I watched the new Mission Impossible- and it was set in Venice and they had a scene on a bridge in front of this house! and on bridges we 100% had just been on. It was fun.

Next we stopped by the Museo di Palazzo Grimani, which is a museum…but was once the home of Antonio Grimani, who became the Doge of Venice in 1521.

Venice is unique in that it was historically always an oligarchy. It was founded and grew to be a city of wealthy merchants. These wealthy families shared power and elected a “doge” to be the representative leader for life. Therefore, since they never would want anyone to have power too long, usually the Doge was much older and would only serve a few years….and it was usually from very prominent families. The Doge had to furnish the palace for himself during his reign…as well as entertain guests and foreign visitors… so it wasn’t cheap to be a Doge… they had to be rich. Venice had the Doge system for over a thousand years… crazy… from 698 to 1797 when the last Doge abdicated to Napoleon.

What makes this house special, is that it was a home of a very wealthy Doge and stayed in that family through the late 1800s. It was restored as a museum in recent times… and there are temporary exhibits and some long term art and sculpture housed here- but really, the architecture is the real attraction- to see the high class life of a 1500s Doge.

The Tribuna, which held over 130 ancient statues in its prime.
We thought this looked like Norah, even without arms and …ahem… as a boy.
There were a few strange rooms staged artfully to house some curiosities. Like in this case, straw and fake mushrooms to show off the skulls and other nature type oddities?.. I didn’t really get it… but some of the stuff was cool.

After that we made our way back down to the Museo Correr in St Mark’s Square. It was 4 museums, in theory, but you had to buy all 4 together and they were sequential along the path… so to me- that’s one dang museum with different sections 🙂

A large solid walnut library that was relocated to the museum. Housing a large volume of historical documents
They had a very large coin collection- with some Venetian coins with images of the Doge back to the 800s.
A few rooms with historical military weapons, with armor and swords and knifes and clubs.
Plenty of ancient roman and greek statues on display… even I was getting “statued out” at this point… and I LOVE this stuff. ha
Venetian Murano Glass chandeliers in the museum from the 1700s

There was sooo much more I didn’t photograph. Tons of exhibits on the history of Venice and building, shipyards, the arsenal and navy, navigating, ports… renaissance art, ceramics… definitely worth a few hours here.

After the museum, I had to promise Norah some fried seafood- her favorite thing – to get her to make it through the boring museum, so we trekked across the city via water bus for 20-30 minutes to the Frito Inn for some cones of fried seafood.

She was very pleased. So were Kegan and I. We got the mixed fish that had little anchovies and big sardines as well as shrimp and squid. It was greasy, but it hit the spot.

After a stroll back by foot, we rested for a bit in our hotel and I took a nap, prior to our guided night tours- an after-hours small group tour of the Doge’s Palace and St Mark’s Cathedral after closing. SO WORTH IT.

Walking across the Bridge of Sighs to the prison

We just about bailed on the tour because the tour guide was all over the place, repeating herself, taking forever on silly stuff, rushing everyone through the areas we wanted to look… and then wanted to take a 20 minute break before we even went into St. Mark’s. (2 groups bailed, it wasn’t just us haha) But we decided we didn’t have anything else to do, let’s stick it out… what if St. Mark’s is amazing inside?? Spoiler alert… it was.

First, when we entered, the church was empty expect for a couple security guards and the lights were all shut off except for a few “emergency lights” and I was like, well of course, they are getting ready to go home… we’re not even going to be able to really see the ceilings… what a crock… We were guided to the chairs in the center of the church and they shut all of the lights to darkness…then slowly in silence started turning them all on, set by set, until the entire cathedral was illuminated bright in all its gilded glory.

I have to say, annoying tour guide or not… that felt like a VERY exclusive experience… and that alone to see the church lit up JUST for you was worth the tour.

The floor mosaics were incredible. Almost all various types and styles of marble make these intricate geometric patterns and animal shapes. And to think, Venice doesn’t have any marble- it all had to be shipped in or brought over the mountains, making the sheer amount of marble in St. Mark’s unbelievable.
The entire church is covered in gold marble mosaics. These aren’t painted. They are glass and real gold. They would make 2 layers of clear glass with gold leaf in the middle and then use those glass pieces to make these huge and gorgeous mosaics. These all seem to have already been completed before the1200s.
The Dome of the Creation from the 1400s. Tells the story in days of Genesis.
This platform is where the Doge would sit, or where a new Doge would be presented to the people of Venice.
The medieval alter screen, from the late 1300s with the 12 apostles and a gold and silver crucifix
The high alter of St Marks, or the Pala d’Oro – 10 feet wide and 7 feet tall, made of gold and silver and 1,927 gems., including 526 pearls, 330 garnets, 320 emeralds, 255 sapphires, 183 amethysts, 175 agates, 75 rubies, 34 topazes, 16 carnelians, and 13 jaspers, originally created in the 900s, but finished in its current form during the 1300s Renaissance.

All in all, the best and most amazing church I’ve ever been in. Glad we went.

It was almost 10pm when they kicked us out of the church for the next group, and we knew we had to head to Milan fairly early so we didn’t want a 2 hour dinner- so we grabbed some sandwiches at a corner shop/bar and ate them in our room.

Our last view of St. Mark’s Campanile before we left the city.

Saturday morning, bright and early we departed on a train for Milan to fit in one last city in a quick whirlwind visit. We had never been to Milan and there wasn’t enough on my bucket list to justify a whole trip there in the next few years, so hitting the few things we wanted to see in this trip just made sense. So off we went on a water taxi back to the main train station

Arriving in Milan, I didn’t really have a good plan- maybe walk, maybe ride the subway? wander around? Maybe grab lunch- the morning was a mess until our pre-booked appointment to see DaVinci’s Last Supper painting and a walking tour of the city.

We arrived in Milan, stored our bags at a local luggage storage for $20 for the day and headed out (we ended up taking our bags with us so that we could exit the return train one stop earlier than we boarded and save ourselves the taxi fare back off the island of Venice since we would be staying at the Marco Polo Airport for our return flight that night.)

We did end up using the subway and buying tickets- Norah thought it was awesome because we each had to pay for our own fair with our own phones (a weird rule) and so she was getting to use her Apple Pay that I just recently turned on for her. Real grown-up stuff 🙂

A Saints decorated car on the streets of Milan. Caught Norah’s attention.

We arrived at the Duomo station and took a look around the square and walked through the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II – a double iron and glass dome shopping arcade from the 1800s.

Norah at the Cathedral of Milan
A statue of Leonardo DaVinci in a square near the arcade.
This city had streetcars a lot like New Orleans.
The most interesting tiny car we came across on the trip

We chose to pass a couple hours at the Leonardo DaVinci Museum of Science and Technology. We didn’t allow NEARLY enough time to see everything there and grab lunch before our tour… so we did the quick pass through, but I’d highly recommend it.

They had a large collection of notebooks of DaVinci on display.
A quick stop for pizza and to rest our (my) feet before 3 more hours of walking.

We arrived at our tour spot, at the Santa Maria del Grazie church which is the site of the Last Supper painting.

You have to buy timed tickets in advance (they were all sold out for the day when we went in) you have to leave all food and drink and bags in a locker… and only 35 people are allowed in at a time for 15 minutes. The doors are also coordinated to not open more than one set at any time so that the humidity and temperature stay at as near constant as possible.

Its important to note that really we aren’t seeing DaVinci’s Last Supper. He painted it in the 1490s and decided to try a new technique of painting on top of dry stucco instead of wet stucco like all frescos were previously done… and it did not go well. It is said that within 20 years of completion the colors had faded and pieces were flaking off. Over the years, with it being in such absolutely terrible shape, they knocked a hole in the wall to create a door, it was used an an armory during the French invasion in the 1700s and soldiers scratched out the apostles eyes.. it was used as a prison in the 1800s… and some guy even messed more of it up trying to remove it to a better/safer location before realizing it wasn’t a real fresco. During World War II the church was bombed heavily and half demolished, so it is a wonder the wall even exists at all…

So, as expected, there have been multiple restoration projects on this painting… and now what we see is as close as can be replicated of DaVinci’s art… but with a lot of documented detail now missing. The feet of Jesus crossed under the table are gone forever. The food and decor on the tables is no longer painted. Even with that, it is a very well-known and maybe the most famous painting around the world (maybe Mona Lisa beats it? also DaVinci…) so it was an awesome opportunity to get to see it in person before it is potentially gone forever. It wasn’t even open to the public from the 1970s to around 2010… so who knows when the next long window of time for restoration will be.

A painting on the other side of the room that no one ever mentions… called Crucifixion

After our time in the Refectory with the paintings, we took a quick pass through the inside of the church.

A colorful modern statue in Milan paying homage to the garment industry that has driven their economy and their place as a fashion capital of the world. I will say, local people dressed much more fashionably and nicer than anywhere else I have been in Europe. Presentation and style definitely matter a lot in Milan. For the record. I was in jeans, an LL Bean sweatshirt and Target slip on shoes. I’m sure I was judged accordingly. 🙂
Our next tour stop was the Sforza Castle – a medieval fortress that served as the residence of the Duke of Milan… but now is just a public space and houses many city museums.
I believe the tour guide said this building used to be the Central Bank of Milan, but now is a Starbucks Reserve Roastery.- the biggest in Europe.
Milan celebrates their Carnival a week later than the other cities, so Milan was busy and there were tons of celebrations in the public squares. There were also protests against the US as well. Right after this group of kids and confetti was a bunch of people lined up and a guy speaking on a karaoke machine in Italian and all I could pick out were the words “Zelensky” and “Donald Trump”
and we ended our walking tour right back at the arcade.
We headed back to the train station to catch our train home which was on time… and grabbed quick “fast food”: dinner from a shop in the station.
Norah had a hotdog and french fry sandwich lol She was happy enough with her decision.

Our train back was supposed to be 1.5 hours… ended up being 3 hours due to a rail strike and diverting down to Bologna and then back to Venice… which gave us a bit of a scare we got on the wrong train for a bit lol Nothing was mentioned, no info was displayed, it just kept saying “15 minutes delayed” and we were over an hour into the wrong direction. All in all, it was fine. We got off at that “earlier” train station on the mainland that I mentioned earlier… and we got a taxi straight to our Marriott Courtyard American hotel bed for all 4 hours we had before we had to get up for our final flights home.

In bed around 11:30pm, up at 4:10, flight at 6:10am to Paris, then 2 hours in Paris, a 10.5 hour flight to Houston… followed by Malaysian crawfish with Tim and Jen again and then a 6 hour drive back home.

1/10 stars, would not recommend 24 hours of travel on very little sleep to end with a 6 hour after dark drive home! haha

Our 10.5 hour flight didn’t have wifi- we got a text that is would be out of service the night before which added to the dissatisfaction with this flight along with the stress that we couldn’t print our boarding passes ahead of time and had to go to the counter in the luggage drop off line to assign our seats, even though I had pre-selected seats and working with customer service for days prior had ended with “nothing we can do”. But overall, all of our trip was very non-dramatic… everything worked out the way it should and we had a great week. Just be weary of AirFrance promising wifi on their long haul flights- research informed me this is common and very often the “wifi isn’t available” which I’m thinking they just don’t want to pay for the usage for that many people on all of their flights and selectively don’t allow it. The silver lining- I do now know I CAN go 11 hours without the internet if I have to. 🙂

We’re going to do a quick trip to Colorado in April and then we have a week in UK/Ireland in late May. More blogs coming soon.