Vicenza & Venice Italy - Tolman Travels

We were so happy to get to visit the Weirlo family in Vicenza, Italy! They were friends from Fort Sill that we didn’t get enough time with so it was great to reconnect. Sweet Presley and the boys play so well together and this was one of Simons favorite parts of the trip.

Our first evening there, we went for a walk around Vicenza. We found a cute little dinner spot and enjoyed the Italian vibe there.

You can’t go to Italy and NOT stop for gelato!

Venice, Italy

The next day we all (except Chad who had to work, sorry!) got on a train and rode 45 minutes to Venice. Hyrum, of course, loved the train and the other kiddos played with slime.

Venice was much hotter than I had planned for I think! Whew! But it was quite a different city than we’ve been to before. There are no cars, busses, or motorcycles, only boats! Water goes right up to business back doors! It was crazy. Obviously, many people were walking and there were lots of shops, houses, and things but if you wanted to really get around, you didn’t call a cab, you called a boat.

We decided to hop on the CitySightSeeing Boat tour. I’ve done other city tours using the Hop-On Hop-Off bus style of sightseeing, so we thought it would be fun to do that Venice style.

We took the boat all the way around to the other side of Venice to the main square. Again, it really wasn’t like any other city I’ve experienced yet. Very, very cool!

It was SO hot, and the kids found a dirty puddle to splash their feet in. At first I wasn’t so fond of the idea, but it really was that hot out.

Hyrum ended up full-on laying down in the puddle and drinking the water like a fish while some Asian women filmed it in horror. He was soaking wet and we joked he’d gotten the bird flu. I don’t think he had the bird flu but he did have diarrhea for the next 3 days, so it’s safe to say he paid the price for his poor choice. If you know our sweet Hyrum, I’m sure this story comes at little shock to you. Regardless, GROSS!

The highlight of Venice for the kids was feeding the birds. Presley is quite the bird whisperer, and it helped that she had packed snacks for them! They would come eat out of your hand and land right on you! The kids spent over an hour doing this in the hot, hot sun.

Even Nick joined in the fun! It was, however, on accident and he seemed less than impressed. Ha!

We’d been told a stroller would be difficult in Venice and decided not to bring it. I do wish we had though, and our tiny little umbrella stroller would have been only a slight inconvenience but would have earned its keep. Now we know!

We’d heard about an amazing little book store in Venice so we ventured across town to see it. It has 2 full-size gondolas in the store full of books! Out back of the store, they have damaged books to climb on that are used to divert water from good books when the store floods, which is apparently not uncommon. What a fun little chaotic bookstore!

Presley is quite the little photographer! She stole the camera, took Simon up on the pile of books, and posed him as a true photographer would! Those two are just the cutest together.

Here’s one of the photos she took. Great job Presley! This cute girl has her own YouTube channel too. It’s adorable!

A few other pictures from our wanderings around Venice.

Thanks so much to Presley and the Weirdos for letting us crash their place for a couple of nights, even on the eve of their own vacation. We look forward to having them over to Belgium soon!