Europe 2022 (Part 4): Venice, Italy

Hi there! This the fourth and final blog post in my series about our Europe 2022 vacation. As a reminder, we flew into Venice, Italy and then drove to the Lake Garda area for a couple days. Next, we drove up to The Dolomites for several days in the mountains. From there, we drove to Rovinj, Croatia and stayed in a kinderhotel that was incredible for our kids! Our last stop was back in Venice. We dropped off our rental car back at the airport and then took a water taxi (!!) to our hotel for a couple days to explore Venice and relax before heading back home to Nashville.

We stayed at the J.W. Marriott in Venice which was very fancy and truly amazing! There were several restaurants onsite and the food was so delicious. We spent a majority of our time at the family-friendly pool, as we promised the girls we would swim every day of vacation and that we did! During naps, we would rotate who got to go up the adults-only rooftop infinity pool to read and hang out! The grounds were absolutely stunning so we really enjoyed walking around, especially at sunset. There was a kids club, but we opted to not send Lucy (Winnie wasn’t old enough) because we wanted to explore and also just hang as a family.

The hotel is located on its own private island, so obviously, we needed a boat to get to and from our hotel. I don’t have much (any?) water taxi experience so I was just truly delighted and tickled at using a boat to get around a city. So fun! Both days we were there, we had breakfast at the hotel and then took water taxi into Venice to explore each morning. We stayed for a couple hours, grabbed lunch and gelato (obviously) and took the water taxi back to the hotel for naps and lazy, relaxing afternoons at the hotel. It was a really good mix of adventuring and lounging that was perfect for us, especially at the end of our vacation!

We really just ‘winged it’ when it came to exploring Venice and would just wander until we wanted to get a cappuccino or lunch! We did go to two playgrounds which were smaller, but nice to let the girls get their wiggles out! Venice was VERY hot and VERY busy, which I wasn’t surprised by but with kids and the stroller it just felt like a lot. We felt good about getting a couple of hours in each day to explore. 🙂 One place I LOVED and highly recommend is Serra dei Giardini, a cafe built inside oof a greenhouse (you know E loved that!). There’s a video tour of it at the bottom of the blog post! We also loved looking at the sculptures at Giardini di Marinaressa. We did enjoy very delicious pizza every single day in Venice which feels like the perfect way to wrap up our time in Italy.🍕

Alright that’s really all I have for Venice – not a lot of words or recommendations, buts lots of photos and even more special memories! ✨