We are a family of 7 travelling, 2 adults, 2 18 year old boys, 2 almost 17 year old girls and a 13 year old girl. Our first part of the trip was Florence and Siena, now we are in Venice.

Friday
We drove from Siena to Venice today. According to all the direction web sites it should have taken us about 3 hours. What they did not take into account was the mountains that you have to travel. The road would become narrow and steep. Add to that a lot of trucks and I kept up a litany of prayers! My husband again won the award for outstanding driving! We had 1 hour added to the trip just in the mountain region! Lunch was at the autogrill, which wasn’t too bad. We grabbed sandwiches and ate in the car. We had a bit of trouble finding the correct way to tronchetto parking garage. As we unloaded the car of luggage we were swamped with “help”. We had decided to take the water taxi just because of the amount of luggage and people. It ended up costing €105! Mistake #1, the vaparetto would have been longer, but much cheaper! The taxi deposited us off in front of the Pensione Accademia. I was instantly charmed! It was my favorite hotel of the trip (also the most expensive). The hotel had a wonderful front courtyard and back garden. One the rooms was directly behind the front desk (#7). I was concerned about noise, but it turned out not to be an issue. We actually had 2 rooms, one larger with a queen bed and a smaller room with 2 twin beds. Each had an a/c. Two of the windows looked over a small canal. There was a small computer hooked up to the internet that kids could check in at home. The girls had the room “Thelma” located in the garden. They loved it! The beds were comfortable and rooms a good size. The hotel staff was wonderful in answering any and all questions! I asked them about a special restaurant for the next night because it was my daughter’s birthday. He laughed and told me there was plenty of time before tomorrow to discuss that!
My girl’s met a nice Belgium boy at the hotel. His mother was very unhappy with the hotel. They had an upstairs room and claimed the beds were awful. They were switching hotels the next day.
We dumped the luggage and headed out to St. Mark’s square. We decided to walk to give the kids the layout. It took over 15 minutes on foot; the bus is a lot shorter. There was no line for St. Mark’s basilica so we went in. Lovely. They did not have paper wraps available as in Florence, so we had to take turns with 2 of the girls and shoulder covers. The attendants were extremely serious about the noise. A group of tourist laughed at a private joke and were asked to leave. At 5:00 on the nose they closed and pushed everyone out. We waited in line for the tower and were pleasantly surprised to see that it had an elevator! It had been rebuilt in the early 1900. It was €6 to go up. The girls were disappointed because they had a mission to climb every tower they encountered!
We wondered back to the hotel and got ready for dinner. We took the advice of the hotel desk and ate around the corner at Taverno San Trovaso. We all ate like horses and the bill came to €160 for 7 of us. We were all very happy!
The 2 boys and my youngest went back to the hotel and the 2 older girls, my husband & I went to St. Mark’s square. We selected the quartet that played somewhat contemporary (jazz, blues etc.) music (around the side toward the Grand Canal). We sat there sipping on cocktails for 2 hours and it thought that it just doesn’t get better than this. PERFECT! It was a bit expensive, however. For 4 drinks the bill was about €60.
The boys had gone out for the night by the time we got back. They were trying Piccolo Mondo around the corner. They were home extremely early. They were quite upset that the crowd was mostly “older” men and 1980’s music! 

Saturday
Bus tickets are €3.10 per trip and €9 for a daily pass. A family pass was available for a small discount.
We had an appointment for the secret itinerary at 11:35. The line for both the basilica and Doge Palace were huge! Thank goodness we had a reservation, we were able to go to the front of the line! At that point I felt it was worth the price just to line hop! The line for the basilica never went down that day, we were so happy we went in the night before. The tour was interesting. We found out that the day before the workers were on strike the palace closed. Again we dodged the bullet! It was late by the time we got out. Since it was my daughter’s birthday they wanted some private time (translation, without the 13-year-old). The girls headed off for a birthday lunch and we headed for Murano. I had seen “Picasso” style busts and loved them. It was about ½ hour bus ride there. When you get off the bus some people were heading everyone to the left, toward their shop. In reality all the stores and restaurants are to the right. After a quick lunch of pizza (to calm my daughter) we started shopping. I found nothing. As my husband was checking the bus schedule to go back I wondered into the last store. I found what I wanted. It was a bust of Adonis by Giovanni Tosi. We negotiated for about 1 hour and got the original price cut in half, but still probably spent too much. It doesn’t matter, when art speaks to me logic is gone. The price included shipping and insurance. We bought it at Vetreria ca”D’oro.
Exhausted, we went back to hotel about 6:00. The boys were back already and had gone shopping and walking. The girls followed us by about ½ hour. They had covered an enormous amount of sight seeing and shopping.
It had stated raining. The desk clerk had recommend another restaurant and made reservations. We ate at Cosin di Nobil. It was a disappointment. The service was poor, the food only marginal and more expensive.
Martha was so disappointed about the rain, she had wanted a gondola ride for her 17th birthday. I told her that I was 42 and this was my 4th trip to Venice and I still had not taken one. Her time will come!
The boys wanted to go to the casino. They had been carrying around a sports coat just for this occasion. They headed out and the girls and I went in search for a Bellini at Harry’s bar. All of us were disappointed. The boys rode the bus to the Lido, walked a good bit only to discover it was closed (we had asked at the front desk, they knew very little). Harry’s bar was extremely small. If you were not eating dinner the only seats were around the bar. It was extremely crowded. We headed to St. Mark’s square. We had a lovely time listening to music. We sat at Cafe Florian, 4 drinks and a music charge of €18 brought the bill to €61. As we started back to the hotel we ran into my husband and the boys. We thought the night was still young and went to a lovely little entocheca. We split a bottle of brunello, the boys’ beer and the girls’ sparkling wine. A couple platters of cheese and we all had a wonderful evening celebrating the last few hours of Martha’s birthday. Exhausted we got back to the hotel about 1:00.

Sunday

The next morning we were headed for the beach in Rimini. From the start I knew this part of the trip was for the kids only. I would have preferred to stay in Venice but I knew the kids needed a break from traveling.
As we were eating breakfast the main canal became crowed with protesters. They were upset with the town’s plan to limit some traffic in the canals. They stopped up traffic, beeped horns and waved banners.
We packed up and headed for the Accademia stop. The map showed that one of the lines there went to Tronchetto. I husband double-checked that when we purchased tickets for each of us and each piece of luggage. When the bus arrived we checked again and the boat attendant said that it would not go there, we had to walk to the Zattere stop! We trudged the luggage over the 10-minute walk to that stop, found the right boat and the rest of the trip to the BUS was uneventful. We were just happy that the luggage had wheels!

Susan,
Another enjoyable installment!
I had a similar experience at the Basilica - just popped in one morning in peace and quiet, and every other time I walked by the line was out the door.

A friend and I also stayed in room #7 at the Accademia, and like you, were pleasantly surprised by its peacefulness.

I've heard the name Giovanni Tosi before - I'll have to see if I can find a website with pictures of his work.

I'm sorry to hear about your disappointing dining experience at Casin dei Nobili. We ate there in January, and thought it was good food and a good value. Also, Shannon and I drank prosecco at the bar one quiet January night at Harry's, and enjoyed watching the barman and waiters going about their work. I guess I've been lucky - whenever I've gone there it's been very mellow, and the service has been good...