Row Venice

One of the best reasons to have a travel agent is that their job is to know things that I didn't even know I didn't know.  For instance, everyone has to take a gondola while in Venice.  As you can see from this stock photo pulled from a Bing image search,

it's picturesque, in and out of the boat (Wes loves his souvenir striped polo shirt!), and it's the only way to see a lot of Venice. Notice the lack of sidewalks here? It's about $90USD for a 30 minute ride before 7pm and much more after.  One family we talked to on our family tour earlier said they had done it the prior evening, and that it was charming...if one ignored the hucking a loogie by the gondolier who also spent the row talking on his cell phone. 

But I absolutely would have done it if our travel agent hadn't already arranged an adventure for us.  We used Row Venice,

 ….a non-profit organization of passionate women and expert vogatrici, Venetian by birth and by choice. We are dedicated to the preservation of the traditional Venetian cultura acquea and at its center, the voga alla veneta, the Venetian style of rowing: standing up, facing forward, native to Venice and made iconic by the gondoliers. Many of us are also athletes and regatanti devoted to this Venetian sport that’s as old as the city itself.

Come row like a Venetian with us. Get off the beaten path and onto the Venetian waterways in our beautiful bateline and try it yourself!

What a great family adventure!  Piper would NOT take a turn at the oar, but it wasn't within the spirit of the adventure to fight that battle.  We each got a chance to sit back and enjoy the canals, and we also to hit the open waters.  The water is so interesting, because while it is our adored Adriatic Sea, it is also where the mountain rivers merge into the lagoon.  This makes a confluence of fresh and salt water (and great fishing!), but so much silt that there was no part of the canals or open water that we could see more than a few inches deep. 

A gondola is a boat that is actually slightly curved, like a banana floating on the water.  It's not obvious when you look at them, but it's how they can be rowed straight with one rower on one side.  This boat, the bateline, is symmetrical and requires a front and back rower.  Both Dwayne and I got to do the back position of steering and yes, feel free to think it was easy and I was steer us effortlessly in the direction we were supposed to be going.  (Dwayne did great, of course.)

I would do this again--I hope Piper will join in next time!