I called too much shopping on day 5 of the trip and opted to start the morning trying to send a package back home. I scored a carton from foot locker the night before but couldn’t track down a packing tape and a marker no matter where I tried. In the end we improvised with bandage strapping tape and biro - think it will make it home?
We headed off to Verona, a 2 hour drive from Milano. The Garmin got us lost again so this time I trusted google maps to navigate us to Juliet’s Balcony, Weaving through Verona, down what looked like “Local Drivers Only” streets we managed to find a perfect spot for the bus just a few streets away.
Entering the courtyard the walls of the entranceway are painted thick with professions of love, on the back wall padlocks coat the old gates and the walls of the giftshop are caked thick with chewing gum! I couldn’t convince Gab to lift Emerson’s chewy ban so she could join in, but no luck. We all queued to boost our good luck even further with photo with Juliette. Dad took the kids through the Museum and up to Juliette’s balcony where they photo bombed a Bride reaching out of the balcony down to her Groom in the courtyard below.
Out to the Piazza for a lazy pizza lunch in the sun before we Max and went Gelato hunting and the girls went shopping. Love these espresso bars, a standing shot in the street as you wander around - fantastic! 
The freeway from Verona to Venice was dotted with castles and citadels, all looking majestic on hilltops in the distance. In Venice the car drop off was just across the road from the taxi stand and within minutes we’re on the canals - magic!
Getting to our apartment was easy enough, lugging all our gear to the top floor made me appreciate shipping that carton of stuff home yesterday even more! On the way in to Venice we passed a super market. The guy that showed us our apartment gave us a map with of the island that showed the location of the supermarket. With the map I managed to get lost within three minutes, luckily I had the kids with me, Max looked at me like I was an idiot and took the con. He led through at least 6 alleys and 2 bridges where he gives a “tada” before he even rounds the corner to reveal the supermarket. More impressive still was getting us back to our apartment without retracing his steps through my “lost” section - we got back in half the time.
Finally with the supplies sorted and Gab having unpacked a bit while we were out we headed off to Piazza San Marco for drinks in the afternoon sun at wonderful! All through drinks the kids were busting to get to the Pillar of Death and see if they could still get around to relieve their accumulated punishments. I can proudly say they failed, and I was the first one to get around without touching the boardwalk. Many attempts later both kids made it around and are now apparently free to do whatever they want to do on the Disney cruise, seems they think they set their own release conditions.
With the sun finally gone the water started to bubble up onto the Piazza, Max and Emerson started playing maroon between the forming puddles to see which of them could leave the other one marooned on the either side of the growing puddles. With the water rising up we passed a photo shoot set up to capture girls playing in the puddles under the arches. They roped Emerson into their photo shoot which she very quickly turned into cart wheels in the puddles, one of which ended with her on her but waist deep in a puddle. Drenched we headed home again amazed it’s 9:30pm and just starting to get dark.
The girls went home to get Emerson changed while Max and I sat in a pizza bar joking with the tables around us as the local drunk babbled to himself in the courtyard in front of La Fenice. Magic afternoon, tomorrow we wash and stroll.