Trip to Venice, Italy

For the second part of Spring Break we spent a long weekend in a small town outside of Venice called Asolo. Asolo was about another 6 hour drive, so again, perfect for a long weekend. We found this awesome little hotel on Luxury Link, which by the way, is the best way to plan any vacation. Asolo is nestled in a mountain hillside overlooking miles of green pastures. Tons of cute little cafes and boutique shops. It's a little town so hardly any cars. Mostly all pedestrians and 60 year old bikers (who are in great shape by the way). Our hotel was positioned high on the hillside overlooking the village. We had an awesome view each morning of the snow capped mountains in the distance and the village below. So, we spent a day or two exploring around Asolo, we even attended an Italian catholic church on Sunday morning. Let me just take a moment to digress and tell you about nice European hotels in general. Don't get me wrong, I loved the hotel, it just takes some getting used to hotel policies around here. If you are traveling with children, it is not like the states where you can request two double beds or one king size bed in a room. The hotels charge you per guest. So, most all hotels specify two occupants per room. So, if there are 4 of you, two being children, they will charge you 50% of the room price, per child, per night, even if they sleep in the bed with you! That is double the cost of the room! We paid extra to have a suite with a pull out couch. Little did we know that meant that we would have to pay 100% more each night to have our kids sleep on that pull out couch! We even brought our own linens! It does not matter. They say that a large part of this expensive in breakfast. How much breakfast can a 4 year old eat? Anyhow, we got over it quick since we are now beginning to learn that this is very typical throughout Europe. Just a word of warning for those of you traveling with kids! Anyhow, back to our trip. On Friday, we took a one hour train ride from Asolo right into the "City of Canals", Venice. Venice was everything I imagined it to be. Tons of narrow old streets, filled with expensive designer stores and others selling carnevale masks and Venetian glass. The boys loved the masks and searched for one that was not too scary but ended up with a jester hat instead. We did tour around Saint Mark's Basilica, which is a beautiful cathedral in the town's square. Unfortunately, we never got a chance to ride on one of the historic Venetian gondolas. By the time we got around to it, it was getting late, Auston was asleep in the stroller and the lovely man dressed in black and white stripes was willing to cut us a deal for a 30 minute gondola ride for only 100 euros! Yikes! I am glad we visited Venice. It was beautiful and we took a million pictures of the canals. I am however, so glad we did not stay in Venice. It was very touristy and extremely expensive. We had two beers for $30. Enough said. Shopping wasn't that exciting either since I already have plenty of Louis Vitton bags and the Venetian Masks really do not go with the decor of my home. Anyhow, I'd recommend vi sting Venice for a day or two but staying in a small town like Asolo would be ideal.