Venice
Thursday 3/12
We landed at 9:15am and took the boat bus to Venice. We bought a round trip ticket for €27. A one way is €15. We stayed at the Carnival Palace Hotel.
It's about a 4 minute walk from the bus stop (guglie- pronounced goo-lia). The boat stop is a minute walk from Gam Gam. So about an 5 minute walk from the hotel to Gam Gam.
We got to the hotel at 11:15 and they let us check in early. First they put us on the third floor in a big king room. We then asked them if we can switch rooms to a lower floor because I didn't want to shlep the stroller all the way up on shabbos. The rooms are beautiful! The bathroom is nice size and has a light that changes colors in the shower.
(the last picture of our stroller
)When the shower is on you can see the colors in the water! Pretty cool!
The hotel is a bit pricey but definitely worth the money. I also got partially sponsored by my aunt
. It comes with a free breakfast, which nothing is kosher besides the fruit and jelly. There were a bunch of Jews in the hotel for the weekend. I even met someone by the #ddsjrslm that was also going to Venice for shabbos and stayed in the same hotel as us!! We ended hanging a bit together over the weekend!
The weather was sunny at a a high of 61F. A sweatshirt was enough for me.
At about 1 pm we headed out in the direction of San Marco square. We first made a stop in the Jewish Ghetto.
I bumped into one of the Chabad bachurim whose a good friend of mine! He is there along with 5 other bachurim doing a smicha program and helps out making a minyan during the week. They are also the waiters in Gam Gam on shabbos. We then continued along the scenic aka "shopping" route.
Stopped off in the Borsalino store. No luck in getting anything cheaper than those bandits in Bencraft.
It took us about an hour to get to San Marco. At the square we just chilled and walked around, looked at more shops and get swarmed with birds.
Not much to do there besides that. Unless, you wanna get a gondola ride.
We didn't do it. I couldn't get myself to spend 80€ on it. I did find someone to do it for €60 but then it was very windy and didn't want to keep my baby out so long.
On the way back we got so lost. And to make things even worse both of our phones died. So I had to memorize Google maps before to get back to the hotel.
Supper was at Gam Gam at 8:15.
Chicken Soup with a Matzah Ball. Tasted like water.
We split a steak and meat spaghetti. Both were pretty good. Steak- 7/10. Spaghetti- 8/10.
Fried Artichoke. I didn't like them but my wife liked the batter.
Hit the sack at 11 and once again zonked out and fell asleep in our clothes. This was becoming a habit already
.
Friday 3/13
Davened Shachris at Chabad at 9:30!! Now that's the way you do it on vacation
. Bought some bakery items from the pizza shop. We're very good. I also brought cheese, a loaf of bread and a sandwich maker. Made ourselves some grilled cheese for lunch later.
At 11:30 we headed to Murano. It's about a 20 minutes boat ride, for €7 to the island. Murano is the Capitol for glass making and blowing. We made a little mistake by coming at 12 pm because that's when the glass factory employees take a lunch break until 2. So we walked around the islands, ate lunch and shopped until 2. We then headed to the CAM factory. It's located right near the first boat stop in Murano. A young guy about 25 escorted us to the back where they make the glass. It was pretty cool to watch them shape a glob of glass.
After about 20 minutes the guy, who seemed to be In our face, told us to go with him to the showroom. We wanted to stay longer but he said no! Whatever. We went with him, and wow! What a showroom!! Totally stunning! He didn't let us take any pictures. He was following us around everywhere and it really felt like he was breathing down our backs, hoping we would buy something. Too bad for him. But it was worth it to see jaw dropping glass art!
At around 2:45 pm we then returned to Venice to get some late lunch in the pizza shop. Wasn't too bad.
Friday night in the Chabad Shul was packed. All sorts of people. My Chabad bachurim friend made sure to get me into the first shift with a seat that I could put my stroller next to us. There were a bunch of chasidish Israeli bachurim singing the whole time. It was very leibedik! The food was a regular Friday night meal. Nothing to write home about. Dips, salmon, chicken on the bone, meat with rice. Hit the sack at 10:45 looking forward to an 11 hr night as Shachris was at 10am.
Shabbos 3/14
Shabbos in Venice is beyond chilled. The late Minyanim, heimishe atmosphere and of course free food, make Venice arguably the number one place in Europe to go for shabbos. It is not a place you can get bored of. Mrs Mech was just there last year and we both made up that we beezras hashem will be back for another shabbos before next Pesach (when we move back to America).
There is a very interesting minhag in Venice. Anyone who gets an Aliyah, has to be mekabel to learn one thing of Chassidus - eg. One Perek of Tanya, a mamer from the rebbe.... So I got an Aliyah and was mekabel a perek of Tanya!!! Any mekor for that??
My Chabad bachur friend got us the same seats as the night before, for the first shift. The whole shabbos he kept on shtelling us with shnapps and the good red wines, bringing us extra food dishes and making sure we were taken care of!! I felt bad for the people that had tried getting to the first shift but had to wait, while I didn't have to do a thing to get my seats. Lunch was basic. Dips, salmon, cholent and kugel. I brought my own cold cuts. The meal ended at around 3:15. We went on a walk and found a beautiful place to sit at the edge of the ghetto, overlooking the big waters. Mincha and Shalosh Seudos took place in the Shul. Havdallah took a while
. Outside in the ghetto square, we all wrapped our arm over each other's shoulders and sang hartzige songs!! An amazing way to let shabbos go!!
We decided that being that our flight the next morning was 7:50 am, we would pack right after shabbos then go out afterwards. The only thing that was open was Gam Gam. The pizza store only opens in the summer on motzai shabbos. Gam Gam was packed and the service was a little slow. And they kept on mixing up everyone's orders. I ordered a meat lasagna and my wife ordered the spaghetti salmon. Both were pretty good. We were thinking about going to the casino but want to get a few hours of sleep before our next day and a half of traveling.
Sunday 3/15
We checked out at 6:05 am and walked to the boat sop for the 6:18 am boat back to the airport.
Sunrise from our boat. We made it to the airport at 6:40 am. Plenty of time till our flight. We checked in our bags till Tlv and was going to check in our stroller by the gate and have that go as well to Tlv. We only had a 2 hr stopover in Rome and didn't want to take out our stroller. (I put it in a transport bag and was a pain to reassemble). There was a plus and a minus in checking it to Tlv. The plus was that in Rome, we found a luggage cart that had a bay seat that was perfect for us. I was so pumped when I saw it I literally was jumping!! I've never seen this in an airport before. It's brilliant. Every airport should have it. It would be so much easier just checking ur stroller in with the rest of you bags and using this in the airport.
The minus about it is the worst part of our trip. When we got to Tlv our stroller was no where to be found. I filed a claim and have harassed Alitalia and anyone I possibly can, to even tell me where it is. They have no idea. It's been 6 days already and they still have no clue. So far I've opened a delayed baggage claim with Chase (I bought the tickets with my Sapphire Preferred) and hoping to get up to $100 a day for five days on "basic necessities". And if they can't find it, open a lost bag claim with Alitalia (probably won't get anything) and Chase. I'm wondering if I can also get reimbursed for purchase protection from Amex (platinum), which is the card I used to buy the stroller...??
It really was a shame that they had to screw up at the last possible second of our trip. We took 4 flights with them and everything was perfect until now. But I hope I'll make some money off of this
My uncle picked us up and we stayed at his house until 10:30 and we headed right back to the airport for our flights back to the states. Still no stroller. We flew Turkish. Arrived in Istanbul at 3:15 am and headed to the Prime Class lounge thanks to Priority Pass. There we 2 huge couches that we snug up in for 2 solid hours of sleep.
At 5:30 we woke up and wanted to go to the Turkish Lounge which only opened at 5am. Got in with my United Lounge Club Card. Wow! What a lounge! It's freakin huge and gorgeous. Tons of food station, with gourmet chefs making personal paninis, eggs, waffles, the like.... Virtual golf, movie room, pool table, kids playground, showers, massage, Xbox..... The list is endless. We only ended up chilling there for 45 minutes before we had to board.
Heres a few pics. For anyone who wants to see what this is all about
https://youtu.be/ClOqV_i9mRE.
This marks the end of my first trip report and first trip to Europe. We are hoping to make another Europe or Asia vacation in the summer. Maybe Spain or Bangkok.... Gotta start planning!!!