New Recipe

Suggestion #1: Reformulate the recipe for European deodorant.

In my estimation, this 4 star hotel we are staying in could be a 5 star if (1) the beds were softer than a box spring and (2) if they would not feed you ooey, gooey, chocolate mousse tart at breakfast. I mean who does that?

When I asked Drew that question, his response was, "Who eats that for breakfast?" But that is beside the point really.

One piece of advice if you travel to Venice (or Italy for that matter) pre-book, pre-book, pre-book. Being the incredibly savvy organizer that I am, I pre-booked our 'Secret Itinerary' tour of the Doge's Palace, which is pronounced 'doe- jez'. Okay, truth be told my Dad reminded me to pre-book. But BOY did we avoid the queue!

Since we didn't have to wait in THAT line, we got in the line for the free visit to St. Mark's where photos are prohibited.

The interior is beautiful and the ceilings are decorated with tiny mosaic tiles in gold. The effect is stunning. (Dave pointed out that we've been in St. Peter's, St. Paul's and St. Mark's on this one trip.) By the time we finished viewing St. Mark's it was time to meet for our tour of the Doge's Palace. A Doge is a president/king that ruled Italy and the last Doge resigned after Napoleon paid a little visit to the area. One of the things the government encouraged citizens to do is 'rat' on each other. If you thought someone was participating in something traitorous or even immoral, they were encouraged to write it on a piece of paper and drop it into one of the many 'mouths' around Venice. (The boys asked to borrow paper and pen from me at this point.)

And talk about opulence... the entrance has a staircase with a ceiling of 24 karat gold. Maybe that is why they call it the 'golden staircase'?

The tour crisscrosses through the maze that makes up the palace, including the jail cells that once housed Casanova. Casanova wrote his tale of escape from the prison but the Italian guide emphasized that it is a work of FICTION - the Italians have much better security than Casanova would lead you to believe. His tunneling would have included boring through a ceiling where a painting by Tintoretto hung, except they hung it a few days later. Maybe to cover the hole? We passed through the bridge of sighs from the inside and took our 'last breath of fresh air' as prisoners would have done.

When we finished, Daniel still wasn't feeling super great and had a low fever so we gave him some more medicine and a preventive dose for all of us, just for good measure.

I really have enjoyed the hotel and the location just cant be beat. Here's a view as we are approaching.

We had some washing to do as our wardrobe is pretty repetitive but check out the scene as we made our way to the 'erre effe' Washeteria:

The boys found a take away pizzeria and brought me some pizza Margherita that was not the best I've had so we used some gelato to get the bad taste out of our mouth. But, we left with clean clothes and cherry/chocolate flavor in our mouths. Not too shabby.

Did I mention that we have a killer view from our room?