I’ve been to Venice twice.  The first time I stayed at Hotel Danieli in a beautiful blue and gold room overlooking a small canal.  The Gondoliers sang as they passed by my window.  Good thing it was a nice room, because I spent almost all of my several days in Venice in it and in bed.

I was sick in Venice.  It wasn’t because of the sewage in the water, the dampness, the warm air.  It was the summer flu — vicious and untimely.  My only memories of the trip are walking in Piazza San Marco for about two minutes, and weakly eating one dinner at a small restaurant tucked away on a side street.   I never lingered on the piazza in a misty light, with a cup of coffee, listening to the gulls.  My husband saw the sights on his own and reported back to me each day.  I studied the blue and gold wall paper, and watched the sun make light and shadows across the elegant room. And I slept.

The second time I ever visited Venice was just the other day.  My father was visiting from Florida (I’ve never been to that Venice, although I have been to Florida’s Naples) and we decided to take a day trip with the whole family.  We didn’t quite calculate clearly that we would be spending five hours in the car, and that we would have to be home by five in the evening because of that modern inconvenience: the Skype conference call.  In retrospect we should have asked “The Lady” how long it would take to get to Venice — that is what we call the navigation system in the car — because she always gives a clear idea of timing, and had we thought things through…..  However we failed to ask the lady until it was too late.

At any rate, we blithely stepped out and drove off into the sunrise that morning, heading for the canals and the pigeons and the great sinking city.  It was early and it was still dark when we departed.  We drove a borrowed mini van, silver.  Our rations included Nutella sandwiches and clementines.

I’m sorry to report that the drive wasn’t that pretty, due to it being on a four lane highway with considerable traffic.  I must note, however, that my husband, an intrepid optimist, kept insisting that it was a beautiful drive.  My father slept and I read about insomnia in Venice, a book, by the way, that kept me awake for days.  (The book is called The Family That Couldn’t Sleep, A Medical Mystery, by D.T. Max).  The children argued and chattered and screamed some, but were mostly as good as the gold paint on a gondola.

When we arrived close to the city, we accidentally tried to park by the big cruise ships, but the men in uniform wouldn’t let us, so we turned around and found another parking garage where they charged you 50 cents each to go to the bathroom.  The bathroom had a moving Star Trek like door, and you put your 50 cents in, and then rushed forward when it opened.  The sound it made upon opening was the same sound as the Star Trek door makes.    At first we didn’t realize that the door only works if you stand at the line a couple of feet from the door, and you must only move forward when you get the green light.  If you crowd the door to rush in, you lose your money.  We lost some money due to the learning curve.  Now we are old pros.  The process taught us patience.  Something that Italy loves to teach, and is very good at teaching.

After the bathroom, we were not quite sure where to go, but we followed the signs for something called the “People Mover.”  Although “People Mover” sounded strange to me,we pressed forward and boarded it.  And it moved us, the only people in sight, towards Venice proper.    Then we hopped on a water taxi headed towards Piazza San Marco.

I highly recommend a water taxi.  It is much more fun than a checker cab, most days.  After roughly 45 minutes of scenic water taxi-ing through the Grand Canal we arrived at Piazza San Marco.  Just in time, because the children were starving for lunch.  We ducked into a restaurant behind the piazza somewhere, and it smelled a little strange, but I’ve heard that about Venice.  The waiter looked at me and said “Nicoise salad?”  And, after a pause,  I replied “Yes.”  How did he know?  The children had pasta, of course, and the grown-ups all shared a bottle of wine.

After lunch, we thought about coffee and dessert at Florian, where Dickens and others sipped and munched, but time was speeding along, and so we rushed off in search of a Gondolier.  The Gondolier actually found us before we could find him.  He offered us a special price, piled us in, pushed off, and away we went.  He was a fifth generation Gondolier, and he knew every single person we passed, as if he himself had been living in Venice for five generations and knew every soul in town since birth.

We floated through tiny canals, and past a big UPS boat which was painted an appealing color of turquoise.  I’m partial to turquoise, and I like receiving packages from UPS as well.  A winning combination in my book.  After pushing past Mozart’s old home, we circled around somehow and ended up back where we started.  Then we jumped of the Gondola, speed-walked to the water taxi, sighed as the water taxi floated us toward the People Mover, somehow didn’t even have to get on the People Mover again because the water taxi took us directly to Parking.  That was confusing but fortuitous.  How did it know?

And then home, a direct shot along the highway.  So next time, I want several days and nights there, no untimely illness, and the leisure to roam at will and drink coffee with Dicken’s ghost.  See you soon Venice.  I’ll be back.